Campaign Launched in Japan to Conserve Biodiversity by Selling Organic Rice and Wild Deer Venison

Copyright Daichi wo Mamoru Kai

Organic food delivery services provider Daichi wo Mamoru Kai (in English, the Association to Preserve the Earth) started a marketing campaign October 12, 2009, to encourage people to eat organically grown rice and venison from wild deer that have been culled in order to conserve biodiversity. Its aim is to preserve traditional rice paddies, which act as home to a variety of life forms, by getting people to consume organic rice, and to maintain forest ecosystems by encouraging them to buy meat obtained from the culling of the overpopulated Japanese Yezo deer.

The campaign was kicked-off with a home delivery service by offering registered customers a variety of organic rice produced under 123 brands by 65 farmers in 24 prefectures from the south to the north of the country. Customers receive 1.5 kilograms of one of the brands of pesticide-free or specially grown rice each week.

The company then started selling venison from Japanese Yezo deer on November 2, 2009. In Hokkaido, the number of the deer has multiplied due to the local extinction of its natural predator (wolves), regulation against deer hunting in recent years, and global warming (which allows them to more easily survive the winter). They cause as much as 3 billion yen (about U.S.$33 million) in damage every year, and while protecting the deer, it is now necessary to hunt and eat them in appropriate numbers in order to restore the ecological balance.

There are plans to add new products as part of the campaign to focus on biodiversity conservation, in preparation for the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP-10) scheduled for October 2010 in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture in Japan.

'Japan's First Food Miles' Cafe Gaining Popularity (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/029469.html
Daichi wo Mamoru Kai Opens Noodle Soup Shop Using Domestic Rice (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/029365.html

Posted: 2010/01/14 06:00:15 AM