Category Archives: Food & Agriculture

TOKYO, Nov. 25 ― The number of farm households that signed family farming management agreement in Japan rose 0.8% to 57,605 in March from a year ago, data from the government has showed. The family farming management agreement is a written form of agreement that establishes payment, days-off and responsibilities of farming operations among the family members. The Shinzo Abe’s administration introduced the new scheme to improve the working conditions and gender problems in the family farm businesses. The government has encouraged them to take up the new scheme with the aid of special grants. The number of farm households that signed the agreement totaled 28,000 in 2004, and surpassed … Continue reading →

TOKYO, Nov. 22 ― Tokyo’s Nerima Ward will host the world’s first Urban Agriculture World Summit (UAWS), which will be held from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1 next year, looking to urban farming as providers of vital ecosystems services in major metropolitan areas. With limited land, urban farms also offer the chance for city stores and restaurants to get their hands on locally-grown produce, as well as offer young people careers in agriculture. Experts on urban farming in five cities will gather the meeting. The five cities are: New York, London, Jakarta, Toronto, Seoul and Tokyo. In Tokyo, one of the largest and most congested cities in the world, the … Continue reading →

TOKYO, Nov. 24 ― Japan has set a target by 2027 to get more than half of Southeast Asian members to accede to the 1991 revision of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) Convention. Japan has been pushing the neighboring countries to build an intellectual property system that protects the rights of the breeder of each new plant variety and seed protection, as it aims to boost agricultural exports in the Asian markets. UPOV has 75 members, including Japan and China, which have introduced the system based on the convention. Among the 10 ASEAN members, only two — namely Vietnam and Singapore, have ratified … Continue reading →

TOKYO, Nov. 24 ― Japan’s food exports rose for the seventh consecutive month in September, thanks to largely to appetite for wagyu beef and fruits in neighboring Asian countries, official data has showed. Total shipments of agriculture products, processed foods and seafood soared 14% to 79.2 billion yen in September from a year earlier, according to the agriculture ministry. The primary agricultural products, which constitute half of total agricultural exports, increased 14% to 48.7 billion yen. Among those products, wagyu beef rose 18 to 2 billion yen, partly due to a rapid growth in Taiwan after the neighboring Asian country lifted 16-year bans on imports of the meat from Japan … Continue reading →