The workmen at the giant American rice silos on the outskirts of Tokyo are understandably cagey about the size and state of their contents. Some believe it to be more than 2 million tonnes, many believe it to be slowly degrading to a level where it will one day be inedible to all but pigs and chickens. The only certainty is that Japan isn't going to eat it.

Governments are fast realising that the apparent rice crisis - certainly no myth to those starving in the Philippines and Haiti - is more about secret political deals and global agricultural imbalances than about traders screaming on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade or prices fixed over a coffee by the rice elite of Bangkok.

Research by the World Bank suggests that export subsidies and tariffs by wealthy nations hit the paddies, fields and orchards of the developing world to the tune of an annual $100 billion (£51.1 billion) in lost income.

The Japanese Government is now accused of sitting on a supply that could, at the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen, end the current food crisis. A report by the Centre for Global Development, says: “The simplest mechanism to stop the crisis is for the US to authorise 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 ton.”

Under its commitments to the WTO, Japan is forced to import about 770,000 tonnes a year from abroad (it releases only the tiniest fraction into the stores). About half is sent off in the form of food aid, but the majority is simply stashed in silos, and strict rules prevent it being re-exported.

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