Category Archives: Farm Policy

HIROSHIMA, Oct. 19 — A giant field with 30,000 flowers arranged to depict Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani is attracting visitors to Hana no Eki Sera, a tourism farm in Sera, Hiroshima Prefecture. The flower art, created with 30,000 plants of red, blue and white cultivars of scarlet sage and orange and yellow zinnias on a 55-meter-long, 45-meter-wide field, shows Ohtani walking slowly toward first base, apparently convinced he hit a home run. It is expected to be available for viewing until Nov. 4. The art, featuring Ohtani who became the first Major League Baseball player ever with 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in the same season, … Continue reading →

TOKYO, Aug 29 — Twelve sponsors of Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai’s Future City pavilion, including Kubota Corp. in Osaka, announced the contents of their individual exhibitions to be presented at the pavilion. Kubota, which will make presentations on food and agriculture at the expo, said it plans to exhibit completely unmanned, autonomous agricultural machinery of the future. The firm will demonstrate food and agriculture of the future, using a screen and a monitor more than 20 meters wide in total. Visitors can take part in a simulation game to experience future farming and enjoy learning about a variety of technologies. The firm refrained from disclosing details of the machinery it … Continue reading →

TOCHIGI, Aug. 18 — The government of Tochigi Prefecture has made August the month to campaign for increased consumption of Tochigi-made milk and dairy products among its residents. Every Friday in August, around 30 officials of the prefectural government’s livestock production promotion division which leads the campaign wear a Holstein pattern shirt to work. They also decorate their laptops with Holstein pattern stickers and send out messages in various places to encourage people to drink milk. Tochigi is Japan’s No. 2 milk producing region after Hokkaido. The Tochigi government launched the campaign to raise people’s awareness of the dairy industry during summer when consumption of milk tends to decline. They … Continue reading →

KOCHI, Aug. 16 – In Maehama, Nankoku City, Kochi Prefecture, there still are reinforced concrete bomb shelters, called entaigo in Japanese, built in wartime to protect battle plains. The gray ferroconcrete structures were sitting in green ripe rice fields. There are seven entaigo remaining in this area, and the biggest one, the No.4 Entaigo, measures 44 meters in width, 23 meters in depth, and 8.5 meters in height. The dome-shaped structure built to house a two-engine large-sized plane is still partially covered with camouflage soil and grasses. After the war, local farmers started using it to keep agricultural machinery and as a place to work in winter. Shinji Fujimoto is … Continue reading →

SHIGA, Aug. 6 – Japan’s National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) and Marusan Hashimoto Co. (Nagahama City, Shiga Prefecture), a Japanese silken thread manufacturer, announced on August 5 a successful joint development of new highly-durable strings for shamisen, a traditional Japanese instrument similar to a banjo. The newly-developed strings feature silken threads from cocoons of a new silkworm strain “Kyomei,” a strain known for producing high-strength silken threads. Instrument strings made from silk produce beautiful sounds and resonate well. However, they are weaker and easier to break than resin strings, which are more commonly used. NARO and the thread maker plan to expand the use of silk strings to … Continue reading →