Author Archives: The Japan Agricultural News

【News】 Artificial “Crows’ conversation” to scare off harmful crows from orchards and livestock houses: SOKENDAI University developing new device (Oct. 19, 2016)

The Graduate University for Advanced Studies or SOKENDAI, based at Hayama town, Kanagawa prefecture, has launched a new project to develop a device for scaring off harmful crows from farming areas by making them mistake artificial “crows’ conversation” for cries of wild crows with a crow-shaped drone of a small unmanned aerial vehicle. The flying crow-shaped drone exchanges “artificial conversations” with a robot crow staying on the land. The conversations, which are recorded with sounds of crows’ cries produced by artificial intelligence (AI), are replayed through a built-in speaker of the stuffed-crow robot. Built-in AIs of the drone and the crow robot can also distinguish cries of wild crows. And … Continue reading

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【Opinion】Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement emerging as focus of U.S. presidential election (Sep. 20, 2016)

[By Masaru Yamada, The Japan Agricultural News Special Senior Writer] Television programs are showing Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton all day long. Major newspapers are busy reporting about them. Staying in the United States for the past two weeks, I can feel that the momentum is growing towards the presidential election, with the election day coming in November. What surprised me was the fact that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal has become one of the major issues in the election campaign. Until about two years ago, the only place one could hear the word “TPP” was in parts of Washington, D.C. I’m sure 99 percent of Americans did not know … Continue reading

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【News】 BONSAI now “an honor student of the export” in Japan with overseas demands continuously increasing (Oct.18, 2016)

“Bonsai” or tray planting, which had been classified into a field of hobbies for aged men, has gained a considerable reputation as a global brand mostly popular among a number of overseas people. Kawaguchi city in Saitama prefecture is one of the biggest production areas of garden plants in Japan, which has a 400-year long history. The city is well known as “a town of Bonsai” to lots of Bonsai lovers in foreign countries. Many international buyers directly visit the city to purchase various kinds of Bonsai. Some of Bonsai tree growers in Kawaguchi are shipping more than a half of their products to overseas markets. The World Bonsai Convention … Continue reading

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【Opinion】Joint efforts vital to fight against intentions behind agricultural cooperatives reform (Sep. 27, 2016)

[By Yoichi Tashiro, professor emeritus at Otsuma Women’s University] With the Diet session opening, there is one thing we have to make clear before the start of deliberations on agricultural policies: exactly why and how agricultural cooperatives are attacked. The true intentions behind attacks on farm coops can be seen in the two unsettled issues listed in the Regulatory Reform Council’s second report released in June 2015. The first is to turn primary cooperatives’ credit business into branches and agents. The second is to demutualize institutions affiliated with agricultural cooperatives, including the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations (ZEN-NOH), the Norinchukin Bank, and federations under the prefectural agricultural cooperative unions … Continue reading

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【News】 Naomi Watanabe help promote Aomori-grown apples in big way (Sep. 27, 2016)

On September 26, 2016, a council for promotion of Aomori-grown apples, Aomori Prefecture Apple Measure Council, held an event in Tokyo to promote apples grown in Aomori Prefecture, featuring a famous female comedian. The plus-size comedian Naomi Watanabe appeared on stage wearing a huge apple tree Afro wig. A commercial video, in which Watanabe takes a big powerful impressive bite of an apple, is now available online on the council’s website. The hot big comedienne who has earned 5 million fans on one social networking site said that she wants to make Aomori-grown apple famous all over the world. As a girl whose weight is over 100 kilograms, she said, … Continue reading

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