You can buy the same rice in Japan if you are really desperate.
I think they’re deliberately talking only about rice people actually want to buy.
Japan has very high rice tariffs to protect its domestic rice production. It is not peoples choice, it is not available at a cheaper price.
People who eat mostly rice are picky about the rice they eat.
Golden Rice 2 was on the market for about five years in the Philippines before it got banned. If anybody had wanted to grow it or eat it it could have been a different story. I was talking to a genetic engineer a few weeks ago who said that the sensory qualities weren't that great. Nothing would have stopped advocates in the US from planting a few acres and selling bags of it (it's approved and all) but had they done so it would have put the lie to the idea that the developers were being persecuted like Prometheus. I don't think it was anywhere near the threat that its opponents said it was but it was nowhere near the boon that its promoters said it was.
I found a TikTok which showed rice in a Japanese Costco. A calrose variety American grown rice (Legrande Family rice) in the Japanese Costco was 2998 yen for 5KG. Must be tariffs causing the price to be so high.