Category Archives: Others

Japan’s dairy makers to raise prices in April due to rising costs

TOKYO, Feb. 6 ― Japan’s major dairy makers will raise prices for their products for the first time in four years, with effect from April 1, due to a planned increase in prices for raw milk purchased from dairy farmers, as raw milk output has continued to drop. The dairy product makers also attributed the price hikes to rising costs for packaging materials and labor. Morinaga Milk Industry Co. announced on Feb. 5 that it will introduce new prices in 45 products such as milk, yogurt and other dairy products, in which the retail prices will rise between 3 and 8.3 percent. Meiji Co. also said it will raise prices, … Continue reading

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It’s mysterious circles in Japan! Drone captures circles of trees

NICHINAN, Feb. 3 ― Thanks to drones, the Miyazaki prefectural government captures a pair of mysterious circles made of cedar trees at its forest management site. Miyazaki prefecture is well-known for Japan’s biggest output of cedar trees and the Nichinan city’s forest is populated by local Obi-sugi cedar trees. So, the mysterious cycles are in fact the results of a 45-year experimental forestry program by scientists, who planted the local cedar trees to understand the effects of forest density of tree growth, explain prefectural government officials. The circle of cedar tress has now 69 meters in diameter, and there are 12 rounds of sequence in circles.

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Japanese students eye boosting sweet potato sales in Malaysia

CHIBA, Jan 19 ― Japanese college students are working to gain a foothold of Japanese sweet potato in Malaysia. Four students from the Chiba Prefecture Agricultural College, accompanied by two teachers, held a two-day promotional sales event, meeting with consumers at department stores on Jan. 12 and 13 in Kuala Lumpur. They showed and served various dishes using sweet potato locally grown in Chiba prefecture. For example, they demonstrated how to make steamed cakes; mixing cake flour with small chunks of sweet potato and cooking them in a rice cooker.

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New Year pink & white rice cake flowers await spring in Japan

TAKAYAMA, Dec. 17 ― It is at peak to make traditional rice cake flowers, called hana-mochi, to prepare New Year’s celebrations in Gifu prefecture. Farmers are attaching pink and white rice cakes, which represents flowers, on to a real branch. It’s simply because there was a difficult time to decorate fresh flowers for New Year’s celebrations in the snowy Hida Takayama region in northern Gifu. “There are several ways to display hana-mochi,” says an official from a farmers’ cooperative from the region. “You can place them with other fresh flowers like an ikebana (Japanese floral arrangement), or place them in your favorite vase,” he smiles. Hana-mochi will be later made … Continue reading

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Japan’s vegetable imports increase in 2018 due to bad weather

TOKYO, Dec. 7 ― Japan’s fresh vegetable imports are likely to break the 900,000-ton barrier in 2018 for the first time in six years, amid a fall in domestic output affected by the bad weather, government data has shown. Fresh vegetable import volume in the first ten months of 2018 totaled 804,863 tons, according to data from the finance ministry. That already exceeded the annual 800,000-ton barrier in the last decade. Japanese trading companies said that falling vegetable output as a result of heavy rainfall in the north and drought in west raised domestic prices, driving the food manufacturing sector to shift to imported produce. “The type of contracts is … Continue reading

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