Free Newsletter
Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishery Promotes People’s Movement for Improvement of Food Self-Sufficiency
September 11, 2008
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishery will execute the “promotion of the People’s Movement for Improvement of Food Self-Sufficiency Ratio” plan as part of this year’s new projects. The ministry is aiming to carry out concrete actions on the consumer level to improve the food self-sufficiency ratio, by deepening public understanding of issues involving food.
The “task force on the people’s movement (tentative name),” facilitated by the ministry, as the key player of the project, will widely encourage food manufacturers and distributors to participate, aiming for efficient and effective execution of the people’s movement. Worsening food issues make improvement of food self-sufficiency a pressing subject. Educating and raising awareness among consumers is one thing; collective collaboration of all stakeholders including consumers, companies, related groups, and local public authorities through the communication of the issues involved in various levels of “production,” “distribution,” and “consumption” is another goal of the movement and becomes imperative for the realization of an effective increase in the consumption of domestic farm and marine products.
First, recruitment of promotional partners, namely companies, will be conducted after setting up the people’s movement promotional organization, responsible for formulating activity plans for the task force.
The task force is proposing and sets to implement the following campaign ideas: 1) the designation of a month to increase awareness of the issues towards the goal of expanding consumption of domestic farm and marine products; 2) development of a movement to expand domestic products, involving nationwide local stakeholders; 3) development and marketing of a certification mark to support invigorating consumption; and 4) implementation of a practice to publicly honor contributors to the movement.
Original article published on September 11, 2008; translated by Kiyo Hayasaka
Inquiry concerning The Suisan Times: suisan@suisantimes.co.jp
Inquiry concerning The Frozen Food Times: reisyoku@suisantimes.co.jp
