OME, Japan – At a Japanese government laboratory on the outskirts of
Tokyo, designer pigs are protected from dirty humans.
Visitors to the livestock experimental station scrub with soap and
wriggle into sterilized suits to ensure that Japan’s most pampered
porkers are cocooned from nasty germs.
Only then can they enter the spotless sties of “Tokyo X,” hybrid hogs
developed by the Japanese government in a bid to create the perfect
pork chop.
When these piggies go to market, their richly marbled meat fetches 50
Read Also
First annual Ag in Motion Junior Cattle Show kicks off with a bang
Ag in Motion 2025 had its first annual junior cattle show on July 15. The show hosted more than 20…
percent more than ordinary pork – a sow-sized premium given Japan’s
long stagnant economy.
But in a country reeling from a spate of health scares and scandals
that have eroded confidence in food safety, many shoppers are happy to
pay more for quality meat.
“Ever since mad cow disease broke out last year, consumers have been
extra safety conscious,” said Hisayuki Goda, director of stock breeding
at the Tokyo Metropolitan Livestock Experimentation Station, or TMLES.
“It’s our mission to meet their needs.”
These hogs may oink and squeal like ordinary pigs, but the similarities
stop there.
Cross-bred from three bloodlines – the American Duroc, British
Berkshire and Beijing black pig – they sport dashing coats, some jet
black, others orange-brown with black spots.
Sensitive souls, they need plenty of living space to thrive.
And they are finicky eaters, dining twice a day on barley-rich feed
that is free of animal proteins and genetically modified organisms.
“What we don’t do is give them beer or let them listen to music,” said
former TMLES president Isao Hyodo, who did much of the grunt work in
developing Tokyo X.
Possibly the only Japanese livestock with a more luxurious life are
cattle that produce the famously expensive Kobe beef. Their farmers are
known for treating them with beer and relaxing music in a bid to make
the meat more tender.
Toyko X pigs produce as much as 70 kilograms of meat, which is high in
intramuscular fat, making it tender and succulent – a major selling
point in Japan, where texture is rated as high as taste.
The $1.5 million Cdn project to breed an elite pig was aimed initially
at helping local hog producers weather a flood of cheap imports from
China.
Farmers who agree to abide by TMLES’s strict standards can buy a few of
the pigs from the experimental station and start breeding Tokyo X
themselves.
“If the region’s small-scale pig farmers were going to survive, we had
to create pork that could be sold at a high price,” Goda said.
“We knew there was demand for meat that was both super tasty and safe,
so we decided to develop a brand-name pig.”
The strategy makes sense in a country where high-end goods such as
designer handbags still fly off the shelves despite a plunge in overall
private spending that is choking the economy.
Many vegetable farmers have taken a similar tack, adopting
less-efficient organic methods so they can charge double for their
chemical-free produce.
Sales of non-conventional farm goods have boomed since the outbreak of
mad cow disease in September 2001 and a string of mislabelling scandals
that have undermined faith in the country’s big food companies.
Five cases of mad cow disease have come to light, battering earnings of
restaurants and meat packers. The scourge has been linked to variant
Creutzfelt-Jakob disease, which has killed about 125 people worldwide
but none in Japan.
In a recent poll by a daily newspaper, 87 percent of respondents said
they “felt worried about food safety,” while half said they didn’t
trust food labels.
“After mad cow, a lot of people are talking about the traceability of
beef, for example,” said government official Ken Suzuki. “With Tokyo X
pork, traceability is guaranteed.”
Farmer Yasuto Sawai turned to Tokyo X as a way of preserving a way of
life that stretches back 12 generations.
Sawai’s ancestors have been growing rice and vegetables in Takatsuki,
near Tokyo, for about 400 years. But fierce competition at home and
abroad had put that legacy at risk.
“See the paddies on all sides?” Sawai said. “Where else around Tokyo
can you see scenes like this? But paddies don’t bring in money. So I
decided to do something creative: value-added agriculture.”
In the summer, Sawai releases dozens of ducks into the flooded fields
that surround his graceful wooden farmhouse. The birds eat weeds and
insects and provide manure, allowing him to forsake chemicals and sell
his crops as organic.
But the real money is in the sties. Sawai has 150 Tokyo X hogs, housed
in roomy enclosures alongside 100 or so ordinary white pigs in more
claustrophobic quarters.
While conditions may not match the hermetic hygiene of TMLES, the
multicoloured hogs are free to wallow in relative comfort.
He calls them his “living diamonds” because of the cash they bring in.
Sales from the pork – about $162,300 a year – are double those of all
his other farm products combined.
“They’re not easy to breed,” Sawai said. “In the beginning there were
lots of problems. Some pigs died. They’re very delicate.”
About 20 farms in Tokyo and other areas raise the pigs, producing 5,000
a year.
TMLES expects that number to double by 2005 as more supermarkets and
restaurants start stocking the brand. Almost 200 stores sell Tokyo X.
Simple economics may lead the charge. Only three percent of farmers in
the Tokyo region raise livestock, but their products account for 16
percent of the value of all farm output.
“That gives you an idea of the industry’s importance,” Goda said.
“Twelve million people in metropolitan Tokyo need to be fed.”
Meanwhile, old-timers such as Sawai’s father, Katsumi, are hoping
value-added farming will breathe life into ancient traditions
increasingly shunned by younger generations.
“In this day and age of internationalization, we’re being flooded with
imports,” he said.
“It’s the responsibility of Japan’s farmers to provide safe food for
Japan’s consumers.”
