JAPAN

Food Agency Buying U.S. Rice: Japan’s Food Agency is purchasing 14,700 metric tons of bagged milled rice from the Sacramento-based Farmers’ Rice Cooperative. “I’m optimistic that this purchase will help us get long-term access to the Japanese market,” Ralph Newman, president of the 1,350-member cooperative, said after the purchase was announced last week. Bad weather that produced a poor harvest in Japan forced Japan to buy bulk rice from the United States for the first since 1967. Japan said the emergency purchases didn’t change its ban on rice imports.