Reflecting rising demand for herbal medicine, domestic cultivation of crops used to make such products is expanding.
The Nara Prefectural Government launched a project at the end of 2012 to promote the cultivation and processing of medicinal plants for herbal drugs to help revitalize communities in mountainous areas.
Farmers near the Kitora tomb in Asuka, Nara Prefecture, harvested "dong quai," or female ginseng, on some 1,000 sq. meters of land in December.