HIROSHIMA / Jeans firm bets on organic cotton

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Facing intensified competition from cheap imported denim, a company in Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture, is hoping to win customers over by making jeans from organic cotton.

On an experimental basis, Sakamoto Denim Co. has grown cotton without using chemical fertilizers in order to make jeans that are environmentally friendly.

The eastern part of Hiroshima Prefecture and neighboring Okayama Prefecture together form the nation's largest production area for denim. But in recent years, the area's supremacy has diminished as cheap foreign imports have made inroads into the Japanese market.

Sakamoto Denim is fighting back by making jeans without using chemical agents in its production processes, such as yarn-making and dyeing, to convey a green image to its customers.

Denim production in the area accounts for about 90 percent of the nation's total, according to the Japan Cotton and Staple Fiber Weavers' Association. But about 99 percent of cotton--the primary fiber used to make denim--is imported, particularly from the United States.

With consumers looking for cheaper products--a trend symbolized by the popularity of Fast Retailing Co.'s casual clothing brand Uniqlo--the nation's denim manufacturing base has shifted to China.

The amount of cotton yarn used in the two prefectures--an indicator of denim production--has plunged to about 13 percent of its 2005 peak.

Sakamoto Denim's workers were worried that engaging in a price war with cheap competitors would hurt the business, so they put their heads together and came up with the idea of creating eco-friendly clothing that they believed people would feel at ease wearing.

It launched its line of jeans in collaboration with two business partners--Taishoboseki Industries Ltd., a yarn-making firm in Hannan, Osaka Prefecture, and Yoshikawa Orimono, a weaving firm in Ibara, Okayama Prefecture.

In May, Sakamoto Denim started cultivating cotton on a 100-square-meter plot in its parking lot. This has resulted in new kinds of jobs for the firm's workers--weeding and pest control, all done by hand.

Next year, the company plans to plant cotton seeds on another 3,300-square-meter plot of land next summer.

It hopes to gradually increase cotton production and eventually manufacture about 1,000 pairs of jeans annually over the next few years.

On Oct. 19, the company held a festival to celebrate the harvesting of cotton, with many people related to the industry participating.

"We'd like to change the current trend of mass production and mass consumption in the denim industry," said Ryoichi Sakamoto, president of Sakamoto Denim.

"We'd like to make products that will be recognized as 'Bishu Denim,'" he added, referring to the traditional name of a region covering eastern Hiroshima Prefecture and western and southeastern Okayama Prefecture.