TOKYO, Dec. 18 ― Japan’s acreage for pineapple plants expanded for the fifth consecutive year in 2018, with growing demand for agro-tourism businesses, government data has shown.
The pineapple acreage in Okinawa prefecture, the only region that cultivates the tropical fruit in Japan, rose 4% to 565 hectares in 2018 from a year earlier, according to the agriculture ministry. That exceeded the 560 hectares in 2008.
All that is playing into agro-tourism, in which tourists visit pineapple farms, harvest the fruit and taste fresh pineapples, an official from the agriculture ministry explained.