Category Archives: Food & Agriculture

Bees and bugs are making a tremendous contribution to agricultural production in Japan by carrying pollens of fruits and vegetables. According to an estimate released on Feb. 4 by the National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, based at Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki prefecture, these pollinators brought about a value of as much as 470 billion yen to the Japanese farm sector, 8.3 percent of the total crop farming production, 5,700 billion yen, in 2013. 70 percent of the value, 330 billion yen, was contributed by wild insects of pollen carriers. Wild pollinators played a more valuable role in crop production than artificial pollinators such as buff-tailed bumblebees. In the total contribution of 330 … Continue reading →

Japan’s exports of foods and agricultural, forestry and fishery products marked a record high for the third straight year in 2015 to reach 745.2 billion yen, an increase of 21 percent from the previous year, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery (MAFF) said on Feb.2. Japanese cuisine boom overseas and a comparatively weak yen are major factors favorable to the continuous increases in the exports. Exports of agricultural products totaled 443.2 billion yen in the recording period. Above all, apple exports gained the largest percentage increase of 55 percent over the previous year to 13.4 billion yen. Beef saw exports jump 34 percent to 11 billion yen, and green … Continue reading →

The ZEN-NOH Group, headed by the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations (ZEN-NOH) in Japan, is strengthening its ties with grain producers in the United States of America to continuously import their product of non-GMO (genetically modified organisms) corn as a major feed ingredient. One of ZEN-NOH’s overseas subsidiaries, CGB Enterprises, Inc. headquartered outside of New Orleans, Louisiana, carries on marketing and transportation businesses for US producers of grains and soybeans. CGB has built up its business activities at grass-root level with non-GMO corn producers in the Midwestern United States, where its 50 staff members maintain face-to-face interacts with those producers in their respective assigned territory through providing them with … Continue reading →

Consumer Affairs Agency and Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries jointly set up a panel to consider how to expand a list of processed food items to be covered by the mandatory labelling system of origin of ingredient. At the first meeting of the panel held on Jan. 29, people of organizations, representing food producers, distributers and consumers, exchanged views and agreed to put together a proposal by this autumn for increasing items to be covered by the labelling system. The mandatory labelling rules of the Government are now applied to all fresh foods and some processed ones. The processed foods are made up of 22 groups of food items, … Continue reading →

“Japan Food Safety Management Association” was newly organized on Jan. 28, in a legal form of a general incorporated foundation, by 18 major companies of food processing and retail businesses. By the end of this March, the Association hopes to create their own food safety standards which will effectively work in international business transactions. It also expects that these standards will not only be appreciated by overseas trading partners, but also be helpful for Japanese companies to boost their exports of food products and expand their businesses overseas. The Association plays a key role in operating an entire system of food safety certification schemes under these standards. Certification and labelling … Continue reading →