Agricultural cooperative officials remove snow from greenhouses in Toyone, Aichi Prefecture.
Officials of Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (JA) Aichi Higashi are helping farmers restore greenhouses damaged by the heavy snow which hit the mountainous Okumikawa region in Aichi Prefecture in mid-February.
According to JA Aichi Higashi, more than 50 greenhouses were destroyed in such municipalities as Shitara and Toyone in the region. JA, the municipal governments and the prefectural government are expected to hold a meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 26, to discuss measures to cope with the situation.
Snow is cleared away from most of the main streets in Toyone, where 80 percent of the 549 households suffered power failure due to heavy snowfall, but residents are busy removing snow from small roads which lead to their houses and farmlands.
At a farm in Toyone’s Misawa district, which grows spinaches in three greenhouses with a total area of 4 ares, all three of the greenhouses, including two whose spinaches were ready for harvesting, collapsed under the weight of snow. A part of the harvested spinaches had already been shipped to JA, but shipping the rest would be impossible, as the farm was still buried under a 140cm deep snow as of Monday, Feb. 24.
(Feb. 26, 2014)