Regarding the article "Younger farmers blogging their way to success" (June 20 issue), relying on JA (Japan Agricultural Cooperatives) has given farmers secure lives as it promises them a stable income.

However, as people's awareness of the quality of food has improved, people have come to seek safer and healthier produce regardless of the price, and they also put more emphasis on the importance of the place of production and how produce is grown, organically or not.

When people find that the produce is trustworthy, they become repeat buyers.

I think that selling only at the farmer's shop or at a nearby farmers' market and pricing produce at their discretion give farmers an opportunity to be in the front line of business. This encourages farmers to produce more attractive and healthier food.

The use of the Internet in advertising produce and in selling it is really an up-to-date way of doing business, and it should attract younger people wanting to buy trustworthy produce.

I really hope that younger farmers' efforts will lead to an increase in the number of farmers and to an improvement of food quality as well as an expansion of the marketplace.

There was a great editor's note in the June 20 issue about Coca-Cola's new product, ILOHAS bottled water. Most companies realize that in Japan branding their products "eco" is very profitable. They have been very successful in making Japanese customers believe that being "eco" is "cool" and the trend-following-prone Japanese fell really hard for it.

To me, one of the basic things that comes with an eco-driven mind is that you are not supposed to spend (extra) money to help decrease the amount of waste. You are actually supposed to be saving money with it. I get really suspicious of companies that try to convince us that they care about the environment but then launch eco products that are in fact more expensive than the regular ones. And the result is that they get double profits: They create a "good guy" image for themselves and obtain more profit at the expense of their customers' weakness.

It's time to get really environmentally conscious and not just "eco-is-cool" conscious.

This June in Tsugaru, Aomori, was the month to celebrate the 100th birthday of Osamu Dazai, born in 1909, one of Japan's modern-age novelists. (Dazai killed himself in 1948.) A marathon race was held June 21 that was named for his famous short story Run, Melos! I have been reading his novels again. It has been almost 40 years since I last encountered his books.

In those days, I had found his books translated in English at the library. I had just started to read his novel Return to Tsugaru. This book is famous because of the symbolic words on the cover, about some kinds of snow in a local dialect. When I found this part in English, it was so fantastic and was a perfect image. I was very impressed and it was emotionally very moving.

Even now, not only young and old, but also Japanese and foreign people are attracted to his books, which are bestsellers. I believe this will continue.

The Japan Times Weekly: July 18, 2009
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