If you have a way to secure rice production, please let us know. Or did you mean to abandon rice because it's too labor intensive? There's a reason for subsidies, just as there are reasons for agricultural support in my home country - without it there would be no agriculture. And, without going into details, that would be a disaster.
The subsidies are to protect Japanese rice production from countries where the same labour is done for way less. All praise free trade, where poverty is the most exported commodity.
Japanese rice is not commonly produced in other countries. And even where they do, the rice is not the same. I eat rice made inside Japan and made outside of Japan, and the latter is a poor substitute.
