Are there organic lunch options in Japanese schools?

The Japanese food situation continues to puzzle me. On the one hand, we have amazingly healthy eating habits – wonders of dashi, umami and fermented products from tofu to a variety of pickles – and yet, the Japanese are oblivious to the continued use on their farmlands of Roundup weedkillers and other dangerous products banned elsewhere.

The recent decision by the Japanese government to release the processed water from the damaged nuclear plants in Fukushima into the ocean raises the stakes even higher for those conscious of food safety. Nowhere is more important than schools – especially the kindergarten and elementary level – in ensuring the quality of what we consume.

International trends of school lunch

In France, 50 percent of items served in school cafeterias must be sustainable and of high quality, of which 20 percent need to be organically produced, per government regulations. The constitution in Brazil provides that 30 percent of the ingredients for school meals have to be sourced from local family farms (much of it also organic). In the US, some schools in California and Washington State have begun to serve organic lunches.

Organic school lunches as part of community building

Organic lunches are beginning to spread across Japan, too. Isumie City, Chiba Prefecture, has been providing locally grown organic rice in all of its public elementary schools since 2017. When the city began to explore “Earth-friendly urban planning” in 2012, there were no commercial-scale organic rice producers there. Local farms and the city hall started a trial-and-error experiment to cultivate rice without fertilizers from scratch, and 15 years later, they are able to provide not only organic rice but a growing list of organic vegetables. Isumi City has become a destination for visitors interested in vegan macrobiotic farming and cooking (e.g., Brownfield with cafe and inn) and ecological lifestyle learning (Peace and Permaculture Dojo).

In Oita Prefecture, Usuki City has been able to reverse population decline/drain by introducing not only organic produce but also allergy-conscious ingredient selections in school lunches. As a result, young parents in the 40s, with children, have relocated to the city. Usuki City, recognizing that the cumbersome process and paperwork for obtaining organic certification from the Japanese Agricultural Standards (JAS) has discouraged farmers from doing so, has instituted an independent system, delegating the inspection process to the prefectural organic research institute administering JAS certification, and covering expenses associated with it on behalf of the farmers.

Networks to promote food safety for children

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These communities have extended horizontal networks to share information and learn from each other, developing the online “organic school lunch map.” These are all stories of community empowerment, as much as of sustainability and food safety, that benefit not only children but also farmers, local tourism-related industries and consumers. In the process of it, air, water and soil are being cleaned of chemical toxins from fertilizers.