WASHINGTON • The United States is considering allowing Japan to sell stockpiled imported US rice on the global market in an effort to curb soaring prices, a US trade official said yesterday.

“The unique conditions in the rice market this year, coupled with the growing humanitarian and political dimensions of recent food price increases in developing countries, warrants considering extraordinary measures on this occasion to calm the international rice market,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

US officials will be conveying these views to the Japanese government, the official said, adding: “We hope to coordinate our food aid donor efforts in the coming weeks to address the urgent needs around the world.”

On Wednesday, a nongovernmental organization called on the US government to allow Japan to sell its 1.5 million tonnes of imported US rice or give it to the World Food Programme to help cool runaway rice prices.

“An agreement by Washington and Tokyo for Japan to release its 1.5 million tonnes of unwanted rice stocks is the key to piercing this bubble,” the Washington-based Center for Global Development (CGD) said.

Under its World Trade Organisation commitments, Japan imports a substantial amount of medium-grain rice from the US and long-grain rice from Thailand and Vietnam, the organization said.

But to protect its domestic rice protection, Tokyo stocks the imported rice until it deteriorates, then sells it as livestock feed on the Japanese market, Tom Slayton and Peter Timmer of the CGD said in the statement.

Most of the 1.5 million tons of rice in storage is in good condition, they said, and is incurring large storage charges.

“Japan would be very happy to dispose of this rice to the world market, but it cannot do so without US acquiescence,” they said.

“The simplest mechanism to stop the (rice price) crisis is for the US to authorize Japan to sell its surplus rice stocks directly to the world market at a price that covers its acquisition and storage costs – probably below $600 per tonne.”