Japan

GMO news related to Japan

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We also recommend:
- Citizens' Biotechnology Information Center (CBIC)
- Japan Resources
providing updates in English from Japan.

Updates + Overviews

2020 - 2022
Report on the GMO-Free Zone Movement in Japan
By Consumers Union of Japan & No! GMO Campaign

◎April 2020: GMO-Free Zone Area Surpasses 100,000 Hectares

In 2020, the 15th year of Japan's GMO-free zone movement that began in 2005, the declared GMO-free zone area finally exceeded 100,000 hectares. Although this represents only 2% of the total cultivated area in Japan (4.37 million hectares), it is a significant achievement for each and every farmer who has voluntarily declared that they will not grow Genetically Modified Organisms.

◎February 2021: GMO-Free Zone National Exchange Meeting in Shiga Prefecture

Shiga Prefecture is a memorable place where the first GMO-Free Zone National Exchange Meeting was held. It is also the land where environmentally friendly agriculture efforts are underway to protect the waters of Lake Biwa. Although the event was held online amidst the ongoing outbreak of the new coronavirus, nearly 300 participants shared their efforts to oppose GMOs in various regions of Japan under the theme of "No Need for GMOs, No Need for Genome Editing". In addition, organizations from South Korea and Taiwan participated online and reported on the status of their anti-GMO movements.

◎March 2022: GMO-Free Zone National Exchange Rally in Hiroshima Prefecture

Some 400 people participated in the online rally held in Hiroshima Prefecture in March 2022. 106,036 hectares of GMO-free zones were registered, up 1,320 hectares from the previous year. With the distribution of genome-edited fish beginning in 2021, the theme of the rally was "Expanding the GMO-free Zone in the Ocean." This time, two fishery companies engaged in pelagic fishing in the Pacific Ocean were registered as marine GMO-free zone declarants, and the number of "supporters" who support farmers who do not grow Genetically Modified crops has reached approximately 23,700.

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2018 GMO-Free Zone Movement Report

Report from the 2018 GMO-Free Zone Movement Event Held in Nagoya, Japan

The 13th annual event to celebrate the Japanese GMO-Free Zone movement was held in Nagoya, Aichi prefecture, on March 3, 2018. During the past year, many groups participated in the preparation of the event, including members of the Seikatsu Club co-operative movement, local citizens and farmers groups in and around Nagoya, as well as the No! GMO Campaign.

Some 300 people joined this year’s event. We welcomed five participants from South Korea’s National Korean Anti-GMO Movement and two participants from Taiwan’s Anti-GMO School Lunch Movement. Starting From Seed to Otowa Rice, the research council that promotes the Otowa variety of rice, the Aichi Network to Promote Sustainable Organic Agriculture, and the nation-wide grass-root movement to test wild-growing GM canola reported about their respective activities in Japan. Also, the latest figures from Japan’s growing GMO-Free Zone movement were announced.

The area that is officially registered as GMO-Free has increased by 1,310.27 hectares to a total of 95, 526.27 hectares all over Japan as of February 1, 2018. That amounts to approx. 2% of the Japanese farmland. This may be regarded as small, but please recall that when we started this movement in March, 2006, we only had 4,716 hectares registered, so this is an increase of over 20 times. This time, we also included the official registration of pasture areas and forests as officially GMO-Free.

Supporter registration has also increased. “Supporters” are individuals and corporations that pledge their support to farmers who have declared their land to be GMO-Free. During the past year since 2017, the number of individual supporters increased by 2,505 to a total of 13,351, while the number of corporate supporters increased by 38 to a total of 84 companies and businesses.

We are working towards more GMO-Free Zones in every region of Japan, and the trend is that the areal is increasing year by year. We have also noticed that it tends to increase a lot in the area where our annual event is being held. This year, the event was held in central Japan, and many new registrations came from Aichi, Gifu, Mie, and Shizuoka prefectures. We believe this trend will continue from now on. The next annual GMO-Free Zone event in 2019 will be held in Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo.

(Updated in March 2018 Information provided by Consumers Union of Japan and No! GMO Campaign)

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GMO-free zone national exchange conference held in Sendai

The 11th GMO-free zone exchange conference was held in Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan on 5th and 6th March 2016 with around 300 people attending, including Tohoku region farmers and consumers from around the country.

In resistance to the centrally controlled Great East Japan Earthquake Reconstruction Plan being pushed forward by the government, citizens in Miyagi Prefecture are currently proceeding with recovery and regeneration that are rooted in local areas, and it was confirmed that the ideas of the GMO-free zone movement are in common with those of the recovery movement by local citizens.

There is also great apprehension that TPP (the Trans-Pacific Economic Partnership Agreement) will result in large amounts of GM foods being imported into Japan and a conference declaration that stated that the resistance movement against such imports is precisely the same as the GMO-free zone movement was adopted.

In February 2016, the total area of the GMO-free zone in Japan is 87,167 ha and is increasing every year.

(Updated in May 2016 Information provided by Consumers Union of Japan and No! GMO Campaign)

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GMO Free Zone Registration Status Report (2012)

The NO! GMO Campaign held its seventh annual nationwide GMO Free Zone conference in Yamaguchi Prefecture on March 3, 2012. About 450 farmers and consumers gathered from all over Japan. The trend in Japan is that the total area of GMO Free Zones is expanding. The total registered area now stands at 78366.81 hectares as of February 17, 2012. This is an increase by 9694.16 hectares compared to the previous year (February 10, 2011). Over the past year, new GMO Free Zones have been registered in 23 prefectures out of Japan’s 43 prefectures, as well as in administrative areas such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Hokkaido. Only two prefectures in the entire country do not have any GMO Free Zones. In total, the combined area is about 1.7% of the cultivated farmland in Japan.

(NO! GMO Campaign, 6 Aug 2012)

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Protect biodiversity from living modified organisms at MOP5 in Nagoya!
A network of japanese organisations was created in order to act on the United Nations’ major meeting to be held in Nagoya, October 2010, for the Protocol on Biosafety (also called Cartagena Protocol) which regulates the international trade of organisms modified by modern biotechnology (living modified organisms). They want the meeting in Nagoya to define rules to protect consumers and the environment. The rules will be a crucial element of the global regulations regarding the integrity and continued sustainable use of living organisms under threat from certain risky applications of modern biotechnology.

The NO! GMO Campaign campaigned to halt Monsanto’s GM rice development, which the company intended to use to promote its GM rice into the Asian market. (in 2001, after a petition signed by over 580,000 citizens)
About 50,050 ha in total (over 1% of the whole farmland) are declared GMO-free in Japan
GM Rapeseed from Canada is growing Wild without control. In March 2004, the NO! GMO Campaign visited Canada and the U.S. to deliver a petition signed by 440 groups representing over 1,300,000 Japanese individuals.
155 organizations representing over 2.9 individuals signed on the petition to ask Australian state governments to extend their GM ban.

How to declare GMO-free zone in Japan? (Japanese)

Organisations and institutions active on GMO

NO! GMO Campaign
We, NO! GMO Campaign was established in 1996 by citizens of Japan in order to stop genetically modified foods (GMOs). The purpose and goals of No! GMO Campaign are: 1. We won't buy, won't eat, won't sell and won't farm GMO. 2. We demand proper labelling of GMO. 3. We work for increased food self sufficiency (food security) and we support local farming. 4. We encourage Japanese farmers to save the seeds, in order to keep Japan's biodiversity and to develop agro-genetic resources. No! GMO Campaign organises seminars and conferences, and publishes information materials. No! GMO Campaign prints and distributes a monthly newsletter for members. No! GMO Campaign has been active in the boycott of products manufactured by pro-GMO companies. We have tested and analyzed a hundred of foods in Japan. No! GMO Campaign has collected 2 million signatures against GMOs in Japan.
World Foodless Day in Tokyo
Consumers Union of Japan (CUJ) opposite pictures show the Planet Diversity Parade organised by the CUJ on the occasion of the United Nations MOP5-COP10 conference in Nagoya. The activists demanded GMO-free zones, no patents on life and protection of biodiversity. View videos here.
Menno Village Naganuma/ Mennonite Mission Network (Japanese)
A Seed Japan (Japanese)
Citizens' Biotechnology Information Center (CBIC): English news service from Japan

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Presentations

	GM-Free Campaign in Japan, by Hiroko Akahori, Seikatsu Club Consumers’ Co-operative and Hiromi Kawahara, Green Coop Consumers Co-operative, "Food and Democracy", April 2009, Lucern.
	Genetic Modified Oilseed rape in Japan, by Ryoko Shimizu, Planet Diversity, May 2008, Bonn. Read the speech of Ryoko Shimitzu
	Japan: How Hokkaido protects its farmers from GMOs, by Shinji Asada, former vice-governor of Hokkaido, Planet Diversity, May 2008, Bonn. Listen to the speech of Shinji Asada read by Raymond Epp