One woman from Yanbian said her family had recently come across to buy rice and other essentials.

They buy rice from our people at very low prices and send it on trucks back to Vietnam.

According to the oversight committee, one ministry tried to buy rice and millet at twice the market price.

But their grant of $27 a month makes it possible to buy rice, sugar, pasta and oil.

As soon as she could get to town, she would buy rice.

People who buy rice by the pound say the price also doubled, and it has stayed that high.

In recent polls, about half of Japanese consumers say they will not buy foreign rice of any kind.

According to de Lima, the money they made was barely enough to buy rice and beans.

Last month the Government began giving vouchers to women that allow them to buy rice for their families at a quarter of the market price.

In 1995, because of an unusually bad harvest, Japan bought foreign rice for the first time.