Farmers markets on the rise in Tokyo

In a city the size of Tokyo, it's all too easy to be unaware of where your food comes from. Most of what we eat is shipped in from far away, not just the extremities of the country but from all around the world. Japan's overall food self-sufficiency rate is bad enough — a mere 38.3 percent as of 2010. The figure for the metropolis must be almost down to single digits.

So it is encouraging to see the rising popularity of farmers markets in recent years. Probably the best known is the one held at weekends outside the United Nations University in Aoyama. Others pop up with increasing frequency around the city in basements, car parks, waterfront malls and plazas in front of inner-city railway stations.