Author Archives: The Japan Agricultural News

【News】 Kale, the superfood, no longer bitter and awful vegetable People eat kale in soup or law in salad for beauty benefits (Apr. 25, 2016)

Posted on 2016-05-10 by The Japan Agricultural News

Kale is no longer just an ingredient of bitter unpleasant aojiru green juice. Today, it’s cool to eat kale salad or kale soup for its super high nutrition value above all. It’s 50 times richer in beta-carotene than cabbage (Beta-carotene helps maintain healthy skin.) The popularity of kale is as a superfood is growing in Japan mainly among young beauty-conscious women, following the endorsement of models and celebrities at home and abroad.

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【News】 Agricultural cooperative’s welfare facility continuously provides care services seven days a week in Kumamoto earthquake-hit area (April 28, 2016)

Posted on 2016-05-09 by The Japan Agricultural News

A nursing care service facility of Kamimashiki Agricultural Cooperative (JA), called JA welfare center located at Yamato-cho in Kumamoto prefecture, has been continuously providing services for aged people living in JA’s area seven days a week since the powerful earthquake struck the Kumamoto prefecture on April 14. At the JA welfare center, water supply was temporarily suspended and some of its facilities were also damaged by the continuous aftershocks. Even under such conditions, its seven-day service provision of two meals deliveries to 250 aged people per day as well as home-visit care has not been suspended. Right after the earthquake hardly hit the area, Shioko Kita, general manager of the … Continue reading →

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【News】 Aso Agricultural Cooperative’s member farmers forced to cancel rice planting in paddy fields cracked by the earthquake, Kumamoto prefecture (April 27, 2016)

Posted on 2016-05-05 by The Japan Agricultural News

A number of rice producers have been forced to cancel rice seedling transplanting in some of their paddy fields due to damages caused by the Kumamoto earthquake in the territory of Aso Agricultural Cooperative (JA), where most of rice producers had already got prepared for the planting works. Shunsuke Takafuji, 43, who planned to grow rice in his 14 hectare farmlands in Aso-shi, cannot hide his disappointment saying “I am afraid seedling transplanting might be done only in the half of my paddy fields this year. Assuming the worst case scenario, it could be less than thirty percent.” In the JA Aso area deadly hit by the second powerful earthquake … Continue reading →

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【News】 Ruling coalition officially decides to postpone TPP ratification until post-election Diet session (April 26, 2016)

Posted on 2016-05-04 by The Japan Agricultural News

Representatives of the ruling parties, Sadakazu Tanigaki, Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and his Komeito counterpart Yoshihisa Inoue, met in Tokyo on April 25 and officially decided to put off attempting to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade pact and enact relevant bills at the current Diet session. They agreed that the TPP pact ratification and related bills approval should be advanced for further deliberations at the Lower House session, aiming at final approval and enactment at an extraordinary Diet session to be convened after the Upper House election this summer. LDP’s Secretary-General Sadakazu Tanigaki said at the press conference on the same day “The TPP ratification … Continue reading →

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【News】 Tomato producers jointly tackling shortage of part-time workers at grading house in quake-hit area of Yatsushiro Agricultural Cooperative, Kumamoto prefecture (April 26, 2016)

Posted on 2016-05-03 by The Japan Agricultural News

Farmers in the territory of Yatsushiro Agricultural Cooperative (JA), one of major tomato producing areas in Japan, have entered their busiest season of harvest in the year. A tomato grading facility of the JA Yatsushiro, however, is now suffering from a lack of part-time workers. A number of those workers have been evacuated at public shelters taking off at the grading house since the Kumamoto earthquake hardly struck the area on April 14. With a view to coping with the shortage of part-time workers, member farmers of the tomato producers’ group of JA Yatsushiro decided to fill the vacancy of grading and packing workers at the facility by themselves. In … Continue reading →

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