Kurashi - News From Japan

This is huge news today, state-owned ChemChina pays some 43 Billion $$$ for Swiss agrochemical biotech giant Syngenta. Syngenta was approched by US Monsanto last year who offered even more, but for antitrust reasons, that might not have been a good match, so Syngenta turned them down. Last year, Dow and DuPont also agreed to merge, creating another giant. What it reveals is that the main players in the US/European chemical/GMO sector are having major difficulties. Incidentally, last year I did a study of Syngenta for Consumers Union of Japan and the No! GMO Campaign. I may have to revisit that and publish it in English as well. ETC Group is the NGO that has followed these companies closely for a long time. They are very critical of the concentration of power that is emerging. The Big Six agrochemical corporations (BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, Syngenta) that dominate commercial seed and pesticide markets worldwide now insist they must get bigger, faster if the world ...

Sunday Nov. 1 - Lots of organic farmers and peace activists and artists meeting up at Hibiya Park in central Tokyo. Music and talk shows plus the chance to support climate change groups and meet anti-TPP experts. All GMO-free. Hope the weather is better than 2 years ago when I participated, and it rained all day. The market and the show and everything started back in 2007, thanks to Tokiko Kato and Yae and many, many others. A great way to celebrate harvest and autumn, and join up with so many wonderful people. This is a Japan that the rest of the world can learn a lot from.  Yae official page (J) Makes me so very happy to live here. And that message comes from Anja (E) This event is the start of Artists for Farm Aid for Japan . Following up from the Love Farmers Conference on September 3-6, 2015 第１回ラブファーマーズカンファレンス Tanemaki official website (J) Talk show website (J)

Germany, France, Japan, and a lot more countries, have totally rejected genetically modified organisms (GMOs) while the US, Canada, Brazil, and a few others can't get enough of it. Even Australia grows the GM canola, and sells it to Japan as food oil. It is not properly labelled here, so Ajinomoto and Nisshin and others can sell it as "Salad Oil". Avoid food oils. So how would the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement influence this state of affairs? Stay tuned, I don't really know. The TPP text is still kept secret. Japan has mandatory labelling laws that help consumers who want to know how their tofu or soy sauce was made. Even potato chips usually carry the label, "Not made from GMO potatoes" so stay tuned, we have very little to go on so far. Update 1 : This was just in the US radical magazine Mother Jones - I like this magazine a lot and especially this writer, Tom Philpott: ...Karen Hansen-Kuhn, director of international strategies for the Inst...

We resisted this for a long time, but social media is a way to reach out to more people. Do join Consumers Union of Japan, and our humble Facebook page, if you are so inclined. https://www.facebook.com/nishoren I wish consumer organizations in other countries would also pick up "peace" as a major theme. How about it? On the left in the photo, let me introduce Oono-san, who edits the Nikkan Berita website. Cool dude who lives in Chichibu, Saitama. He knows all about Okinawa, if you need a quote (or some history of the issue). Or labour issues, or more. On the right, our very special ladies from the No! GMO Campaign. They know even more about genetic engineering and why we shouldn't be eating the stuff,  than I do. If you like Facebook, do sign up!

No activity can be more important than saving seeds of the plants we all need for sustenance - but we have mostly forgotten that art, or science. People here have not given up on traditional ways of seed saving, according to Imaizumi and Akitsu. What are the moral codes for seed-saving? From the interviews with practitioners in Japan: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-287-417-7_20#page-1 (pdf) 2015 Food Security and Food Safety for the Twenty-first Century Proceedings of APSAFE2013   http://www.springer.com/us/book/9789812874160 Editors: Soraj Hongladarom ISBN: 978-981-287-416-0 (Print) 978-981-287-417-7 http://seedsavers.net/ has more: Seedsavers Reunion in Japan    Seedsavers as a movement has expanded in Japan beyond belief in the last 12 years. Today the quest for clean food in Japan is linked to varietal diversity. old varieties of fruit and vegetables...

Care for healthy food and want to join the discussion how to make it better, here in Japan... Busy weekend! How about joining the Japan Organic Agriculture Association conference in Tokyo this weekend? JOAA is the oldest organic group in Japan, founded in 1970. They are known abroad for their work promoting teikei, which is a system to connect farmers and consumers. While similar schemes have evolved in other countries, like the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) trend, teikei is about more - how agriculture can support communities. I will speak in a panel on Sunday March 8, but there is a lot to do and enjoy during the 2 days, including films and seminars by Japanese organic farmers and experts. For more, check out the JOAA website about teikei (E) and details about the conference (J) on March 7-8, 2015 at the Kokugakuin University in Shibuya. Tema: Healthy food and soil for our children. If you are in Kumamoto, you can attend the GMO Free Zone Meeting on Saturday Marc...

I could probably do better, but here are a few links that caught my eye recently. Mother Jones writer Tom Philpott provides a lot of convincing arguments and links that These Ubiquitous Chemicals May Be Making Us Stupid Kids exposed to the highest levels of two common phthalates in the womb had an IQ score, on average, more than six points lower than children exposed at the lowest levels. Do avoid. But do read. The Asahi gives us a hint that should be made more generally available; clearly, this is not advice "to Japanese men" but to all of us. Is this really the level to what newspaper editing has been reduced to? Anyway, important study. Scientists to Japanese men: Eat your veggies, reduce stomach cancer risk January 05, 2015 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN Japanese men can reduce their risk of developing lower stomach cancer simply by eating a lot of vegetables, researchers at the National Cancer Center and other institutions found. ...

...You will be glad to hear that there will be a new international standard for these "non-fermented" soybean foods, agreed today in Tokyo by the Codex Alimentarius, at the 19th CC Asia meeting held this week. Final words on Friday, then the text will be sent to the global food standards body that will put it in the rules books sometime next year. Important both for protecting consumers from fraudulent products and for companies that want to make the stuff. Of course, we want such products to be supplied in a pure form, without unnecessary chemicals! It's like watching paint dry, but the past couple of years provided results. For example, "plain" soy milk will not be allowed to contain any artificial food additives or colourings at all. That's progress as some countries initially tried to water down the standard and delayed the work. Also today, Indonesia almost put a spanner in the works for tofu, by insisting that turmeric or annatto, i e yellow colo...

We got the following op-ed published in Japan’s Asahi Shimbun this week, co-signed by Ralph Nader from Public Citizen and Koa Tasaka from Consumers Union of Japan . It was written in response to an editorial column that made unsubstantiated claims about TPP and consumers. In its September 08, 2014 editorial, Asahi Shimbun argued that “Japan, U.S. should consider consumers, not industries, in reaching TPP deal.” As consumer movement leaders in the U.S. and Japan, we agree that it is crucial that both countries prioritize consumer interests. However, we strongly disagree with the editorial’s unsupported assumption that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as it is currently being negotiated would benefit consumers. What is important to consumers? Healthy and safe food. Banking and insurance services that protect their financial well-being. Affordable medicines and health care. Access to an open Internet and privacy protections. A clean environment. From what we know...

C onsumers, farmers, activists, and invited guests from Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, Brazil, Germany, Sweden participated in the Korean demonstrations at the MOP7 meeting in Pyeongchang, October 2014. Among the topics were farmers' rights as well as local seed saving and consumers' right to know. Do share. Seems Japan has totaly ignored this opportunity to make any effort at all to lead in the effort to work for biodiversity. Korea isn't doing much better, but we can only hope. Or will they just pass the bucket to Mexico, the next host in 2018? People do attend these meetings hoping to make a difference. Why does industry (Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, Bayer, Syngenta, BASF, and others...) have such a massive influence on the results? Deutsche Welle: UN alarm over shrinking biodiversity Grim warnings on the earth's dwindling biodiversity have been given at the opening of a UN conference in South Korea. A UN report says governments are only...

The COP12 conference in South Korea is currently discussing all kinds of matters related to biodiversity, from falcons and sharks to illegal logging and "Action for a World Living in Harmony with Nature": Read more: http://biodiversity-l.iisd.org/guest-articles/how-cites-is-taking-concrete-action-for-a-world-living-in-harmony-with-nature-cites-contribution-to-the-un-decade-on-biodiversity/ The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) from 1973 is contributing to: realizing the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity (2011-2020); achieving the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets; and celebrating the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity's vision of a world living in harmony with nature... Learn more about CITES by visiting www.cites.org or connecting to: www.facebook.com/CITES ; www.twitter.com/citesconvention ; www.youtube.com/citesvd ; and www.flickr.com/cites . The CBD Alliance is in Pyeongchang, and publishes dail...

...work obligations and long held convictions will take me to Pyongchang, South Korea, for the UN Convention of Biological Diversity conference. Remember Nagoya, 2010 ? I feel very fortunate to be able to participate in events like this. Since the Rio Summit in 1992, it was clear that climate change and biodiversity where among the most pressing issues facing our planet. We need sunshine and rain and food (seeds) and rain and then some certain comforts. Energy issues - another factor, but the global community never managed to create conventions for that, thus the uncertainty. Imagine - a UN convention for oil. Or a UN convention for energy. Didn't happen. I have kept working on food safety issues, trying to educate people about seed issue, and the importance of organic farming, and avoiding the massive amounts of antibiotics used for the animals people eat. Plus I try to tell everyone that cares to listen to avoid artificial additives, or colourings, if possible. But ...

Japanese farmers have completely rejected genetically modified organisms. There is no cultivation of GMOs in Japan for commercial purposes. Very few field trials are ongoing at research institutes, which we are keeping a close eye on. Meanwhile, reports from China indicate that GM rice will not be allowed, which is great news. South Korea also does not grow any GMOs commercially. Activists and experts in Asia are not supporting GMOs. Here is Third World Network and their campaign for biosafety . The Biosafety Information Centre is a website set up and managed by Third World Network. The goals are to: Increase knowledge on, and deepen understanding of, (w)holistic approaches for a comprehensive assessment of technologies and techniques that involve genetic engineering Contribute to a wider public discussion and critical understanding of the scientific, ecological , social, economic and ethical dimensions of genetic engineering under the rubric of biosafe...

I have been hearing good things about permaculture but I'm less inclined to agree that animal husbandry can be integrated in any such endeavor... Ken sayz… Personally for me permaculture is about just enough and finding contentment, not exerting energy to make money. I like that it’s focused on rebuilding the top soil and growing perennials and growing food and transforming yards into useful spaces, making everything have multiple functions. To me permaculture is not just about making it in the current economy, it’s about planning for a future economy after unsustainable practices fail and leave us with nothing but the more sustainable ones, which is something that I think young adults today will see as they grow old. Which made me come up this story, or parable, or fable, of our times: Once upon a time... there was a city boy in his early thirties who moved to the hills to farm with his young wife. They started small and that all went well for a while. Th...