ZEN-NOH (National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Association) or a national business organization of agricultural cooperatives (JAs) will put its new project into practice next March, which is to operate agricultural supply stores jointly with JAs for a purpose of supplying fertilizers, chemicals and other inputs directly to farmers.
ZEN-NOH aims at making farmers increase their satisfaction with a wider selection of farm inputs at the supply stores or agrocenters by managing inventory in more efficient manners through its supply network crossing over prefectural borders.
It is expected that ZEN-NOH’s business function will make it possible for JA’s agrocenter to avoid taking a risk of overstock.
ZEN-NOH will open the first agrocenter next March with JA Tsuyama based at Tsuyama city in Okayama prefecture. It plans to build up a nationwide chain of 100 “joint-management agricultural input shops” with JAs by the year of 2026.
In this new project, an area of each prefecture is to be divided into several business territories. ZEN-NOH will establish a core agrocenter at each territory with JA as well as satellite small retail shops spreading around the core center.
The core agrocenter will provide supply service to farmers with a wider selection of farm inputs such as fertilizers and chemicals, while its satellite shops are to respectively characterize inventory of production inputs meeting needs of rice producers or horticultural farmers on the basis of features of local farming in an area where each satellite shop locates.