Abstract
The consumer questionnaires done in the cities southward from Chang Jiang revealed that per capita rice consumption had been decreasing due to consumption of non-staple food and wheat products. In addition, about half of the answerers to the questionnaire had increased their japonica rice consumption. Consumers with a taste for sticky rice account for about 60% of the answerers. These indicate that southward from Chang Jiang, where the majority of rice produced is indica rice, there is a large market for Northeast rice, i.e., sticky japonica rice. On the other hand, most answerers indicated a taste for aromatic rice, which is related to rating Thai rice highly. Therefore, it is assumed that enlargement of the market for Northeast rice is conditioned by the relative price to indica rice and the possibility of breeding japonica rice as an aromatic rice.
