Japan rice crisis sheds light on bigger problem

Last week's turn of events showed that Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Seiichi Ota and Toshiro Shirasu, the Japanese ministry's top bureaucrat, finally came to realize how heavy their responsibility has been in allowing public distrust regarding food safety to spread so widely.

Ota and Shirasu, administrative vice-agriculture, forestry and fisheries minister, resigned last Friday to take responsibility for the scandal in which imported rice contaminated with pesticide and mold was illicitly resold for purposes other than industrial use. Shirasu was effectively sacked from his post.

It is only natural that the ministry's two top officials were replaced, but these personnel changes alone will not be enough to change the organizational climate in the ministry, which has induced one scandal after another. A sweeping structural reform should be carried out to resuscitate the ministry.