Apparently the rice thing has a lot of "government intervention" keeping them from producing more than they could be, very similar to our farming issues, and the increasing urban density making it impossible to find young, strong men to move out there to work the fields, so they are slowly aging out of having the workforce for what farmland they do have.

I imagine that was the intention for all the immigrants in the first place. Sending them to the rice fields (motherfucker).