The result, Dr Abe hopes, will be a viable salt-tolerant strain that is ready for market within four years.

ECONOMIST: Salt-tolerant rice

Dr Abe's plan is to use these mutations to create salt-tolerant rice.

ECONOMIST: Salt-tolerant rice

Salt-tolerant rice would, though, be of much wider use than just restoring the paddies of Miyagi prefecture and its neighbours, the worst-affected part of the country, to full productivity.

ECONOMIST: Salt-tolerant rice