NAGANO, Jan. 19 – The coldest season of the year has come, and so has the busiest season for kakukanten agar bar production in Chino City, Nagano Prefecture. The bars of kanten, neatly placed in a drying area across cold, harvested rice fields, create a unique scene that makes locals feel the coming of winter. The temperature was at 4 degrees below zero after midnight. At the workshop of Gomi Kiichi Shoten store in Chino, people are boiling and dissolving tengusa seaweed, the raw material for agar, in a huge cauldron nearly three meters in diameter. The room was filled with steam and the distinctive scent of seaweed. “It’s especially … Continue reading →

TOKYO, Jan. 5 — Can agricultural produce be mass produced in a standardized process like industrial products? It has been believed that farm products — whose yield and quality are affected by such factors as weather, temperatures and soil — are different from industrial goods. A company in Tokyo challenged such conventional wisdom by developing a new technology of controlling more than 20 environmental factors including temperatures and the amount of light in a fully-enclosed setting to allow harvesting of the same vegetables any time of the year. The vegetable factory, separated by enclosed shelving units, was developed by PLANTX, a company in Tokyo’s Koto Ward. It can produce yields … Continue reading →

Iwate, Japan, Jan. 6 – Japan’s rice policy discussion for 2027 will start in 2026. The Japan Agricultural News had an interview with Yusei Kikuchi, a Japanese professional baseball pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels of Major League Baseball (MLB), about his thoughts on rice and the future direction of Japan’s rice policy. “I take rice-oriented diet for better nutritional balance. I eat a lot of rice, like eight onigiri rice balls every day. I eat two rice balls per meal, three times a day, and two rice balls as a snack between meals. I travel with packed rice even when we are playing away games. My favorite rice brands … Continue reading →

AKITA, Jan. 14 — Takashi Kakinoki, 38, of Noshiro, Akita Prefecture, has been working voluntarily to pick abandoned persimmons and process them into food products such as okonomiyaki savory pancakes and smoothies. He engages in the activity in hopes of turning neglected persimmon trees in rural villages into valuable resources. Last year in particular, when Japan saw a record number of bear sightings —with many attracted to fruit-bearing trees in residential areas — he received a number of requests from owners of persimmon trees to harvest the fruit because they don’t want to cut down the trees filled with memories. Kakinoki, a native of Hiroshima Prefecture, moved to Noshiro, his … Continue reading →

TOKYO, Jan. 4 -On January 3, 2026, 21 universities competed in the Day 2 for the 102nd Tokyo-Hakone Round-Trip College Ekiden Race (Hakone Ekiden) from Hakone Town, Kanagawa Prefecture, to Otemachi, Tokyo (from 6th to 10th stages totaling 109.6 kilometers). Aoyama Gakuin University won its 9th, and 3rd consecutive, overall victory. Tokyo University of Agriculture (TUA), which started the second day of the two-day race in 13th place, passed on the sash (tasuki in Japanese) to the goal and finished in 18th place overall. However, it could not secure a seed that they had wanted for the past 16 years. “Go for it, Yua!” The vigorous cheering came from 75-year-old … Continue reading →