Taking a cue from soaring world prices for vanilla, an Okinawa farm has started cultivating the valuable spice in an initiative aimed at promoting the employment of low-income workers and people with disabilities.
Vanilla, called "green gold" for the prices it fetches, requires a labor-intensive process to produce. About 80 percent of the global supply comes from Madagascar, but natural disasters and speculative trading have made it even pricier, causing imports to Japan to collapse.
The initiative was launched by local farm producer Solfa Community and Tokyo-based nonprofit group Decent Work Labo, which offers a consulting service for employment of the disabled.