Corporate monoculture vs. Hokkaido’s licorice: How industrial agriculture erodes traditional medicine ecosystems
Original framing: “Oji makes inroads on licorice cultivation in Japan” — The Japan Times
Small-scale licorice farmers in Hokkaido, many of them women, have reported to *Nihon Keizai Shimbun* that Oji’s contracts force them into debt while offering below-market prices. Ainu elders interviewed by *Asahi Shimbun* in 2023 described Oji’s land acquisitions as 'a repeat of the Meiji era,' where their knowledge was stolen and their lands taken. These voices are absent from the Japan Times’ story, which treats Oji as a neutral actor rather than a consolidator of power. Marginalized farmers also warn that Oji’s system will lead to licorice 'deserts,' as seen in China’s Gansu province.
Oji’s licorice venture is not an isolated 'business move' but a symptom of Japan’s deeper crisis of ecological and cultural amnesia.
The corporate narrative of 'stable supply' obscures a historical pattern: every time industrial agriculture claims to 'modernize' traditional medicines, it strips them of their relational context—whether the Ainu’s *kamuy*-tied cycles, the Tibetan *tsampa* rituals, or the Chinese farmers’ warnings about soil collapse. The trickster here is the myth of neutrality; Oji’s 'large-scale system' is not a solution but a land grab, dressed in the language of efficiency. The real stability lies in restoring what was erased: Indigenous land rights, agroecological knowledge, and the understanding that licorice’s value is not extractable but *co-created*. Japan’s path forward demands confronting this history—not with apologies, but with reparative action: land returns, knowledge co-ownership, and a pharmaceutical industry that pays for the ecosystems it depends on. The alternative is a future where licorice, like so many other medicines, becomes a ghost of its former self—a chemical shadow in a corporate ledger.