Tag Archives: News

【News】 Carp-shaped streamers fly over rice paddies in cool breeze (May 3, 2015)

Kotaro Yamada – Iki-iki Yamada Koinobori Festival (Katori-shi, Chiba Prefecture) – In late April every year, the village in Katori-shi, Chiba Prefecture, turns colorful with rows of 200 carp-shaped streamers flying over rice paddies and local farmers doing their usual jobs, puddling soil and planting rice. The scene is already one of the early-summer features of the village. “I feel so good when planting rice sometimes looking up at Koinobori,” said Toshihiro Sugaya, 62, as he stopped his hands and smiled. He is a local farmer whose paddies are right under the great Koinobori display. The villagers of Katori-shi or the village previously called Yamada-cho decorate the area with Koinobori streamers … Continue reading

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【News】 Food manufacturers focusing on onomatopoeia to promote mouthfeel (April 28, 2015)

“Pari,” (crisp) “puchi” (pop) and “saku saku” (crunch)  – these are some of the onomatopoeia, or words that imitate sounds, that Japanese food manufacturers recently highlight to advertise the mouthfeel of their products. More and more food makers are making use of a rich vocabulary of onomatopoeia in the Japanese language to attract new customers and boost sales of their existing lineup of items. Companies are introducing unique campaigns, such as asking consumers to taste their product and vote on what they think is the most appropriate term to express its mouthfeel, or offering recipes which make the most of their products’ texture. Tokyo-based Morinaga Milk Industry Co. is conducting … Continue reading

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【News】 Enjoy your big day in town blessed with scent of flowers (April 19, 2015)

Kazuhiro Eguchi – Peach Garden Wedding (Fuefuki-shi, Yamanashi Prefecture) – If you want to make your wedding something very special, how about getting married in Fuefuki-shi, Yamanashi Prefecture, surrounded by peach flowers in full bloom? It’s a “Peach Garden Wedding” proposed by farmers in Japan’s famous peach-growing town and a non-profit organization (NPO), Fuefuki Shunkan Net. The town of Fuefuki is located on the east of the Kofu basin and has a delta that stretches from Mts. Misaka and is formed by the Fuefuki River. The “Peach Garden Wedding” can take place in April when the town filled with peach gardens turns pink as hundreds of thousands of peach flowers … Continue reading

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【News】 Team “Miss ichigo” to share love for strawberry – Group of 15 girls helping strawberry promotions nationwide (April 19, 2015)

Fifteen girls have teamed up as a group to help strawberry promotions all over Japan. The name of the group is “Miss ichigo (Miss Strawberry).” A kick-off meeting was held on April 18, 2015, at a hotel in Shinjuku, Tokyo, where the girls thoroughly enjoyed all kinds of strawberry cakes prepared by confectioners. The project is produced by Yutaka Saito, 44, president of Little World Inc. and a planner specialized in the sixtiary sector. At Little World, he organizes events and outlets for food and food distribution services. “We’ll hold events at strawberry farms and deliver video contents featuring Miss ichigo on the Internet in order to add value to strawberries,” he … Continue reading

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【News】 Kochi University lab develops method to propagate predator “hunter flies” (April 15, 2015)

Laboratory of Insect Ecology at Kochi University’s Faculty of Agriculture in Nankoku, Kochi Prefecture, has developed, for the first time in the world, a method to propagate Coenosia attenuate, commonly called “hunter flies,” a natural enemy which catches flying insect pests. Adult hunter flies catch and eat such insects as whiteflies, leafminer flies and mushroom flies. The laboratory believes the predator can be a promising biocontrol agent at horticulture facilities and facilities that grow mushrooms on beds of compost. Hunter flies were first discovered in Japan in 2005 by a farmer in the village of Geisei in Kochi inside a greenhouse growing green peppers. Receiving a report that a fly … Continue reading

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