Monthly Archives: March 2014

【News】 Greenhouse-grown banana trees gaining popularity (March 16, 2014)

  Kotaro Yamada How about experiencing banana picking in your house? Okuhida Farm in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture, sells banana plants which can be grown at home to bloom and bear edible fruit. The farm offers budding trees of Super Mini Banana, a small-size variety which grows to a height of around 60 cm, planted in 30-cm plant pots. If grown under sunlight in a room with a temperature of 5 degrees centigrade or higher, bananas on the plants will become ripe and sweet for eating in about three months, according to the farm. Okuhida Farm, which is run by a Japanese-style inn with a hot spring, grows banana trees in … Continue reading

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【Interviews】 U.S. flexibility indispensable, head of LDP’s TPP panel says (March 15, 2014)

  Japan should cooperate closely with other countries to make the United States more flexible in negotiating for the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade talks, Koya Nishikawa, head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s TPP panel, said in an interview with The Japan Agricultural News, prior to March 15 which marks the one-year anniversary of Japan joining the talks. Nishikawa also expressed strong determination to conclude the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement. Q. What was the LDP’s stance concerning the TPP negotiations in the past year? A. Reaching agreement in the TPP talks is one of the important pillars of the Abe administration’s growth strategy. While Japan’s agricultural industry is under attack from … Continue reading

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【Editorial】 Setting a deadline on Japan-Australia EPA negotiations is infringement of Diet resolutions (March 14, 2014)

  Negotiations on the economic partnership agreement between Japan and Australia are starting to get strained, as the two sides try to reach agreement before Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott visits Japan in early April. However, agricultural committees of both the Lower and Upper houses of the Diet have adopted resolutions asking the government to continue negotiating persistently without setting a deadline. Farmers are deeply concerned as a senior Liberal Democratic Party official noted that Japanese negotiators have proposed reducing tariffs on beef. We cannot allow the two governments to negotiate for the sake of meeting deadlines. Ensuring a sustainable future for agriculture is more important than letting political leaders … Continue reading

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【News】 Ruling party asks government to consider risks of poor harvest when simulating rice supply and demand (March 12, 2014)

  The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Tuesday showed a simulation of rice supply and demand for 2023 as part of the government’s effort to disclose information in line with its new agricultural policy of letting farmers produce rice based on their own judgment instead of following the government-set targets. The ministry’s simulation, shown at a joint meeting of the Liberal Democratic Party’s Agriculture and Forestry Division and Research Commission on Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Strategy, estimates that demand for rice consumed as staple food will decrease by around 80,000 tons every year from 7.87 million tons posted in 2013, and will reach 7.03 million tons in 2023. Some … Continue reading

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【News】 2:46 p.m. – Three years after (March 12, 2014)

  Kotaro Yamada On March 11, three years after the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami, a man was visiting a memorial monument in Ukedo in the town of Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, to pray for the victims of the disaster at 2:46 p.m., the time when the earthquake struck the area. Chimneys of the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant, some 6 km away from the monument, can be seen standing in the distance. Ukedo still remains designated as an evacuation zone after the outbreak of the nuclear crisis, restricting people from entering or living in the area, hampering restoration from the disaster. In the nearby fields, which used to be … Continue reading

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