Mr.Tokuoka were interviewed by the magazine, “Wall Street Journal” in October 2004.

(1)Mr. Tokuoka's views on how food production is changing

I think that it’s very important that it is well adapted to environmental change. But this is an idea that's been around for hundreds of years. For that purpose it is necessary to take into account various factors, the consumer side, the supply side and the demand side, beyond only part of the truth. However, especially Japan has been a warped view and focus on economic profits and narrow sectional interest instead of diversified values in recent years.
I sensed these change in society through the taste of foods since I spend much time in our kitchen. But at the time, I didn't know what's change, I couldn’t explain how it differs from. In order to maintain customer satisfaction, we explore all options for world's cuisines and consider establishing an alternate supply source, things never work out as we expect. And it end up in producers. I was appalled to find the reality of the situation of producers. They are striving to make lives for themselves in spite of troublesome circumstances. I come to take into their position and respect each other's and then I started to feel the distortion of modern society like one-way evolution, conventional view. There are always many things happening every day and the value of diversity in the world. For reaffirm the current situation and principles, we have to maintain effective communications with many people in a flatted position. I think it possible to make such an opportunity through a food as a chef. Moreover, a chef is located in the middle of a producer and a consumer; therefore we can play the role of providing a bridge between the two sides. This is just a mission and my duty for a chef.

(2) What he does to promote the preservation of high quality food and good environment practices.

Ultimately, solving the problem will demand changes in the some rules and old mind-set of politicians. For that purpose, I think that it is necessary to promotion of changes in the consciousness of voters who consumes foods in incremental steps. In the result, it's fortunate to change the rules. Needless to say, the food one need to live is offered by people engaged in production. Thanks to the efforts of all such people, we can eat any kind of vegetable and add richness to the dining table. It’
s very important position and should be to ensure a sound environment for them. I think that they are unfairly-compensated for their efforts and contribution to us. The labor shortage in farming communities get more strained unless this situation turns out well.
Hopefully I create a new organization of the superior producer and judge the health of this organization by the certification body; we restore and maintain consumer confidence. It's our eventual goal and it's the right way of brand-building of production area at the present day.
There is a brand of the vegetables called "Kyoto vegetable" from old times in Kyoto, and it is sold at the high price only by the brand image even if it is not organic.
Although there are some opinions, but agricultural chemicals are the medicine which take an insect or weeds off. Even if it thins or reduces, the threat is unavoidable. Some producer tried not to use agricultural chemicals to grow vegetables their eats and if used they didn’t eat those at all. I think that the next generation takes the brunt of the effects of pesticides though it does not seem to be bad for our health right now.
Just because it's a vegetables grown without chemicals doesn't mean it's not delicious. But some producers take it for granted that the organic vegetables are
not delicious and don't step up their efforts to improvement. The vegetable sells just because they are organic vegetables. But the food is beautiful, delicious, pure and balanced thing. I think that the school which teaches such a thing from the technical and mental side is also required.

The article which appeared in the Wall Street Journal (Europe).

FOOD & WINE

Go-Slow Approach: Raising the Profile Of Down-to-Earth Foods

By STEPHANIE GRUNER
SPECIAL TO THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 22, 2004

No one knows better than a chef that you can't make great food with less-than-great ingredients. So as unique and local foods grow harder to find, many celebrity chefs are making their case not just in their restaurants, but also in more public forums.
For instance, this week in Turin, Italy, among the expected 140,000 people gathering for the fifth biennial Slow Food festival, on through Monday, will be cooking stars such as Alice Waters (Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California), Alain Senderens (Lucas Carton in Paris) and Gualtiero Marchesi (restaurant of the same name in Brescia, Italy). Some of the high-profile chefs are there as paid guests, while others are coming at their own expense. All are there to promote their cause of good eating.
Just what is "slow food"? It's an international movement to protect and promote the most flavorful foods, those that take time to prepare and enjoy. Think of wines that ferment for years or cheeses made from the pure raw milk of goats, the kind that wander freely in the hills. Slow food isn't generic or processed. It is fast food's opposite. These products are made by so-called artisans, the winemakers or dairy farmers who, though not necessarily organic, operate in a way that preserves the environment for the next generation. Slow-food proponents say that amid globalization and the rise of fast food, the traditional products and the local cultures that support them risk extinction.

Carlo Petrini, a journalist, started the organization with some friends and fellow food lovers in 1986 in Piedmont. The story goes, he was enraged by the construction of yet another McDonald's in Italy -- further evidence, he believed, of the homogenization of the food culture. Apparently he wasn't alone. Today more than 80,000 people from around the world, including farmers, wine producers, retailers, restaurateurs, chefs and ordinary consumers belong to Slow Food. The way they look at it, there's power in numbers and if links can be built between the Tibetan shepherd and the seller of yak cheese in London, the flock survives, as does a way of life and some great cheese.
'The Right to Taste'
Of course, Slow Food has its critics. The food isn't cheap, particularly convenient or even necessarily good for you. The group's manifesto, "A movement for the protection of the right to taste," makes it sound more like a snobbish dining society. There's something almost distasteful about foodie culture. While goose mortadella may be delicious, it seems frivolous to create a movement toward protecting it at a time when millions of people every year starve to death.
Yet it is preserving products just like these, Slow Food proponents claim, that will lead to greater biodiversity and feed more people. Certainly, the group's projects are ambitious. A publishing arm produces some 40 titles including a magazine in five languages. Its "Ark of Taste" project identifies and catalogs food products that are in danger of extinction. Through events around the world, it aims to educate the public about its approach to food. This year, it introduced an additional conference in Turin, called Terra Madre, or Mother Earth, that started Wednesday and runs until Saturday. Nearly 5,000 producers of food, including farmers and fishermen from around the world, are meeting with other experts to discuss alternative means of food production that take into account the environment, food quality, workplace conditions and consumer health. Projects are funded through all of the above activities, as well as annual membership fees.
At its heart, though, Slow Food is about pleasure. The event this week, Salone del Gusto (Hall of Food) is held every other year in the Piedmont region, which is also home to some of Italy's most celebrated wines. If you're a foodie, it's paradise. On display in some 1,000 stalls are the sorts of unique food and beverages you aren't likely to find in your neighborhood supermarket. If you've always wanted to try ham from Iberian pigs fed on acorns or cacao (the seed used to make cocoa) from the island of Sao Tome off Africa, this event is for you. In addition to stalls of meats, cheeses, seafood, sweets and beverages from some 100 countries, the fair has workshops including one featuring Piedmont's own 1997 vintage Barolos, a presentation of rice from India, Malaysia and Madagascar, and a tasting of artisan beers from around the world. There are also cooking demonstrations.
This is where the chefs step in. They are the public face of fine food and some take this role seriously. Some publicly promote farming methods that use high-quality feed, say, or allow animals to roam free. Others endorse small producers of top products, while still others lecture at schools and give demonstrations on the road such as at events sponsored by Slow Food. "I think we have to be part of what we're doing," says Dag Tgersland, chef at Baltazar Ristorante e Enoteca in Oslo and a member of Slow Food's board in Norway. He often spends weekends seeking out unique, flavorful products at country farms. Back at his restaurant, he hosts dinners at which the producers and their products are showcased. He also lectures at schools to students and parents about the dangers of mass-processed foods and teaches them how to make simple, healthy meals.

Ms. Waters, one of America's best-known chefs, joined the movement nearly a decade ago after hearing the founder, Mr. Petrini, speak at a conference in San Francisco. "When he spoke, I felt like I had been involved with the slow-food movement for 25 years, nearly all the life of Chez Panisse," she says. "It expressed all of the sort of eco-gastronomic concerns I had, but beyond that it was really trying to show the relationship of food to culture. We became friends instantly." Ms. Waters signed Chez Panisse on to become a "convivia," or local Slow Food chapter. (Slow Food is made up of more than 800 local chapters in 100 countries. Individuals can also join, for fees that vary by country.) Ms. Waters is now vice president of the international organization and has played a key role in numerous events and also in recruiting the more than 13,000 American members.
Regional Focus
For the Italian chef Mr. Marchesi, who has been acquainted with Slow Food for roughly a decade, the movement's ideas generally match his own. The key to good cuisine involves using food and recipes traditional to particular regions, he says, and then improving upon them. Food should match its local environment. Refined French cuisine, for example, doesn't make much sense in Brescia, the home to one of his three restaurants.
"Slow food can mean avant-garde cooking, not just classical, old-fashioned foods," says Alain Senderens of France's Lucas Carton. "It just means taking your time to prepare and enjoy. It means defending great ingredients." He says the event in Italy is a meeting point for his chef and winemaker friends.
In the end, of course, a chef's main concern is about what to serve for dinner, and nothing is more fundamental than good ingredients. Carlo Cracco, chef at Cracco-Peck in Milan, says the larger food industry has gotten it all wrong. Though choices have expanded, quality has deteriorated. Mr. Cracco says he doesn't want a dozen varieties of tomatoes that he can buy all year long. He wants the tomato fresh off the vine that has a distinct flavor, color and history, like a wine from a vineyard.
"There is a trend now that you can find the same ingredients in Milan, in Paris, in Berlin and Moscow," he says. "All the ingredients are the same, but none are very good. If I go to Russia, I want to find the products of Russia, not the eggplant from Sicily. I'm interested in diversity."

---- William Echikson contributed to this article.