SAITAMA, Nov. 2 – Venus Farm in Kumagaya City, Saitama Prefecture, is now busy processing sesame seeds. The farm cultivated sesame seeds in late September this year. However, due to periodic rain, it waited 1.5 months before starting to thresh them.
When a 56-year-old golden sesame seed grower at the one-hectare farm, Minako Wakayama, placed a bundle of sesame seeds on a thresher, the seeds popped out with a loud, crackling sound. Wakayama began growing sesame 16 years ago, and she currently produces one ton per year.
Over 99.9% of sesame seeds sold in Japan are imported, and domestically-grown sesame is very rare. Sesame production requires numerous work processes even after harvesting, and mechanization is not yet progressing; therefore, the number of producers is decreasing in Japan, making it difficult to increase production.
Wakayama has introduced a sesame threshing machine, which she created out of a rice threshing machine, to reduce labor. She also uses a dust screen to sort the seeds. Moreover, starting this year, she is involved in a demonstration project using a buckwheat combine for sesame harvesting, collaborating with the prefecture and a local agricultural cooperative (JA Kumagaya). “We want to expand the growing area (for sesame seeds) to 10 hectares by mechanizing more processes,” she stressed.
Sesame seeds pop out when Wakayama places them on the rice threshing machine (in Kumagaya City, Saitama Prefecture)