Cultural Politics of Food Safety - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 573

Meanwhile, food safety drew further attention from Japanese consumers as they
faced a series of high-profile food-related scandals, including the June 2000 food poi-
soning of 15,000 people, the StarLink scandal in October 2000, the first domestic case
of BSE in September 2001, and the illegally high levels of pesticide residue found in veg-
etables from China from May 2002 on. Consequently, the government overhauled and
restructured the food safety policy framework, creating the Food Safety Basic Law and
establishing the Food Safety Commission in 2003. Set up under the Cabinet Office and
headed by experts on a wide variety of food safety issues—such as toxicology, microbi-
ology, and organic chemistry, as well as public health, consumer awareness and commu-
nication—the commission began to oversee an expert panel on GM food, which took
over GM food safety assessment.
Ecological risks of GM food drew more attention in the early 2000s (Yamaguchi and
Suda 2010). The Japanese government was initially against introducing additional regu-
lation for the control of biosafety and did not sign the Cartagena Protocol when it was
open for signature from May 2000 to June 2001. However, because of continuing public
concerns, the government came to take the position that proper regulation in this area
was necessary to gain acceptance of the technology. After months of interministerial
deliberations, the government decided to accede to the protocol and adapt the domes-
tic legal framework accordingly. In February 2004, the “Cartagena Law,” overseen by
the agricultural and environmental ministries, went into force.9 The law is considerably
more limited than its EU counterpart, in that it only applied to risks to Japan's wildlife,
while the EU law covered not only undomesticated “nature” and agricultural crops, but
also human health.
With these regulatory changes and widespread public resistance, most prefectural
governments dropped or suspended their agri-biotech projects, including the devel-
opment of GM rice. However, the national government's commitment to promote bio-
technology and its agricultural application remained in place. By the end of 2004, active
R&D of GM food crops in Japan was mostly carried out by public research organiza-
tions, such as MAFF institutes and regional agricultural centers. In particular, the gov-
ernment continued to invest in developing GM rice, invoking the centrality of rice for
the country's food supply and culture.
Summary
In Japan, the initial visible opposition to GM food came from consumer groups, and
food safety concerns consistently dominated public debates and opposition mobi-
lization. Labeling as a means of dealing with uncertain consumption risks became a
focal policy issue, uniting consumers, diverse opposition groups, and local communi-
ties throughout the country and propelling them to mobilize. This focus allowed the
opposition to achieve an unprecedented scale of consumer mobilization and put GM
food solidly on the regulatory policy agenda and in the spotlight in public discourses.
Subsequently, the government rendered safety assessment and labeling compulsory.