Rice Riots Day

What Is Rice Riots Day?

Every July 23rd is "Rice Riots Day" (米騒動の日, Kome Sōdō no Hi) in Japan. On the night of July 22 into July 23, 1918, women in the town of Uozu, Shimoniikawa District, Toyama Prefecture (present-day Uozu City), rose up in protest against the loading of rice onto ships to be sent out of the prefecture — triggering what became known as the "Rice Riots" (米騒動, Kome Sōdō), a wave of popular unrest that, over about 50 days, spread to 369 locations in one circuit (Hokkaido), three urban prefectures and 37 prefectures, involving by some estimates millions of people.

The Toyama Women's Uprising

In the summer of 1918, rice prices had soared to unaffordable levels for ordinary Japanese people. The wartime boom of World War I had pushed up prices, and the anticipated Siberian Intervention (Japan's military involvement in the Russian Civil War, declared on August 2) was driving speculative rice purchasing; wartime economic conditions had widened inequality; and ordinary households found themselves unable to buy enough rice to eat. On July 23, fishermen's wives in the Toyama coastal area organized to prevent rice merchants from shipping rice out of the prefecture when local people were going hungry. Their direct action — blocking the loading docks — was the spark that ignited a nationwide uprising.

A Nation in Protest

Within weeks, the protests had spread from Toyama to Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe, Tokyo, and hundreds of smaller cities and towns. Crowds attacked rice merchants' warehouses, demanded price controls, and clashed with police and troops. The riots led to the collapse of the Terauchi cabinet and the formation of a new government under Hara Takashi — known as the "commoner prime minister" because he held no noble title, and the head of Japan's first full-fledged party cabinet. The Rice Riots are thus remembered not only as a food crisis but as a turning point in Japan's democratic development.

Rice and Japanese Identity

The Rice Riots illuminate the central place of rice (お米, okome) in Japanese food culture and daily life. For centuries, rice was not merely a staple food but a unit of economic value — samurai were paid in rice, tax was collected in rice, and the price of rice was a barometer of social stability. The 1918 crisis, in which rice became unaffordable, struck at the very foundation of the social contract between rulers and the governed.

Fun Facts

• Women's leadership: The fact that the Rice Riots began with women — fishermen's wives — organizing collective action is significant, occurring nearly three decades before Japanese women gained the right to vote.
• Rice price policy: For decades Japan kept tight control over rice production and prices — the "gentan" production-adjustment policy, which asked farmers to reduce rice acreage, ran from 1970 until it was abolished in fiscal 2018 — a legacy of rice's cultural and political centrality.