A luxury ensured by ducks in the paddies

Organic farming is well-established in Japan, a nation obsessed with food purity. Almost every supermarket has a section devoted to organically- produced vegetables, rice, fruit and poultry, which cost roughly 20 per cent more than conventional fare, writes Raymond Whitaker.

Since Japanese food prices are already excruciatingly steep by Western standards, thanks to heavy subsidies to farmers and high import barriers, organic produce might seem like a luxury. But Japanese consumers are inured to spending a higher proportion of their incomes on food than those in other countries, and organic farming has a high approval rate among people living in large cities - 93 per cent, according to one poll.

Costs have been kept down, and farmers encouraged to switch to organic methods, by direct contact between consumers and producers. Japan has a sophisticated system of co-operatives, known as san tyoku, in which city-dwellers band together to buy direct from farmers, who pool and deliver their produce. There are more than 600 such co-ops, the largest of which has 150,000 members. "It is not just the safety of the food that consumers appreciate, but also the taste," said one official.

About 10 per cent of Japan's farming villages have gone over to organic production. Some rice farmers use ducks instead of pesticides to keep down weeds in their paddy fields, with the result that the rice, the ducks and their eggs can all be labelled "organic".