This paper looks at two citizen movements in Japan that address two unsettling issues with regards to food: the country’s low self-sufficiency rate of merely 40% and the question of food safety. Recently, a series of food scandals involving imported food has alarmed Japan, such as the incident of Chinese dumplings that were tainted with pesticides (gyoza jiken) at the beginning of this year.

Food Action Nippon defines itself as a citizen movement (kokumin undo) that aims to make a contribution to raising the self-sufficiency rate in Japan by providing information about agriculture, domestic food, eating habits and food imports. The movement also organizes events such as “Feel Japan Food”. Slow Food Japan is an NGO and part of the worldwide Slow Food Movement that originated 1986 in Italy. Slow Food Japan seeks to preserve cultural heritage such as vegetables, fruits and cattle that are in danger of vanishing and tied to a specific region and special cultivation techniques. Members of Slow Food Japan argue that the need to improve Japan’s low self-sufficiency rate and the dangers of relying on imported foods as documented in recent food scandals request a return to national produce (kokusan).

Taking these two citizen movements - a domestic citizen movement and a global movement - as examples, I argue that the quest for a return to supposedly safer domestic foods disguises a search for national and local identity expressed through the (re)discovery and promotion of local foods.