Wild Game Meat Becoming More Popular in Japan
Wild game meat, such as meat from deer and wild boar, is becoming more popular in Japan's restaurants — and Japan's agriculture ministry wants people to eat more of it!
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, 2,085 metric tons of wild game meat were processed for food in 2022, which is a 1.6-fold increase compared to 2016. The ministry aims to increase this amount to 4,000 metric tons by 2025.
Deer and wild boar are a problem in Japan because they do a lot of damage to farmers' crops, and their numbers have been rapidly increasing for several reasons.
These animals are naturally able to reproduce quickly in large numbers, and because the Japanese wolf has been extinct since the early 20th century, there is no natural predator to keep their numbers in check.
The number of human hunters has also been decreasing, because Japan's population is aging and people have been leaving the countryside for the cities.
And because there are fewer people in the countryside, more farmland has been abandoned — which creates more space for deer and boar to live in.
In order to control the number of deer and wild boar, hundreds of thousands of these animals need to be culled each year. However, until recently only a small number of the culled deer and boar have been used for their meat, with around 90% being buried or burned.
This is obviously a waste, and the agriculture ministry believes that by increasing the amount of wild game meat used in restaurants or as pet food, it can create new income for people in the countryside.
To encourage the use of this meat, the ministry has been promoting restaurants that serve it and organizing contests for new recipes.
The ministry is also promoting game meat's health benefits. Venison is high in protein, low in fat and has twice as much iron as beef. Boar meat also has four times as much iron as pork, and three times as much vitamin B12, the ministry says.
