Hokkaido’s 22 agricultural cooperatives jointly start exporting sweet potatoes

Hokkaido, Jul. 18 – Hokkaido Prefecture’s 22 agricultural cooperatives (JAs) began exporting sweet potatoes cooperatively. They plan to ship approximately 550 tons a year through a new joint sweet potato sorting facility, one of Japan’s largest, established in the coastal city of Tomakomai by the Hokuren Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives and a local private company. Their initial primary market is Southeast Asia, where baked sweet potatoes are booming. In the future, they’ll expand the production volume further. The current coverage of the 22 JAs is large, from the northernmost area of Okhotsk to the Southern regions of the island. Their production area has reached 35 hectares, up significantly from 10 … Continue reading

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Rice paddy art of Shohei Ohtani resumes in his hometown

IWATE, July 12 — Rice paddy art depicting Los Angeles Angels two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani appeared in his hometown Oshu, Iwate Prefecture. The creation of the artwork on rice fields was resumed following three years of suspension after a group of farmers volunteered to work on it in response to requests from local people. The farmers said they hope Ohtani will continue to thrive just like how he is illustrated in the artwork. Oshu had an organization entrusted with making rice paddy art of Ohtani, but the last time it created the art was in 2019 and its activity has been suspended since then due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In … Continue reading

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Musashino in eastern Japan and Mikata in western Japan designated as agricultural heritage sites

TOKYO, July 7 — The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations announced on July 6 that it has newly designated the fallen leaves compost agroforestry in the Musashino district of Saitama Prefecture and the traditional Tajima cattle raising system in the Mikata district of Hyogo Prefecture as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS). The Musashino district composts fallen leaves collected from woods adjacent to agricultural fields to make fertilizers for cultivating sweet potatoes, while the Mikata district hands down the traditional farming method for raising cattle, having established Japan’s first cattle lineage register in 1898. The GIAHS initiative gives recognition to areas which preserve agricultural technologies and landscapes … Continue reading

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International Agricultural Machinery Show: 114 agri-machinery firms gather in Hokkaido, Japan

HOKKAIDO, July 7 – The 35th International Agricultural Machinery Show in Obihiro, one of Japan’s largest agri-machinery exhibitions, is held in Obihiro City, Hokkaido, on June 6 to 10, 2023. The show is back for the first time in five years, gathering 114 manufacturers and organizations from home and abroad, with many presenting large-sized machineries and processors including smart agricultural vehicles featuring the application of information and communication technology (ICT). Claas from Germany has a display of a large 400+ horsepower (hp) combine harvester with a 12,500-liter grain tank and an attachment for harvesting grain corn, whose production is multiplying in Japan. According to MSK Farm Machinery, the importer, the … Continue reading

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Coexisting with Japanese crested ibis: Eco-friendly farming in Sado, Niigata Prefecture

NIIGATA, July 3 ― The city of Sado, Niigata Prefecture, was designated as the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) in 2011, the first such case in Japan, for its satoyama landscape where people coexist with endangered Japanese crested ibis, called toki in Japanese. During the 12 years after its designation, how did the city manage to spread agriculture that provide nurturing habitats for crested ibis? How can agriculture and economy be balanced with biodiversity? Many crested ibis can be seen at the Kuninaka Plain, located right in the middle of Sado Island which is shaped like the letter S. It is a densely inhabited area with paddy fields spreading … Continue reading

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