TOKYO, Sep. 13 – The number of bears captured in Japan was record 6,285 in fiscal 2019, according to a survey by the Ministry of the Environment of Japan. Bears had less food in the mountains in autumn last year due to a poor acorn crop across the country. They moved around to look for food, and that increased the number of conflicts between bears and people to 140. The number of bears captured is on the rise, with 1,941 captured already in the first four months of fiscal 2020. The ministry urges farmers to strictly follow bear safety cautions, such as not leaving agricultural products in the fields, to … Continue reading →

TOKYO, Oct. 14 – Many theft cases of agricultural produce and equipment are reported nationwide after April when the government issued a state of emergency to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infections. The stolen items range from pigs, cattle, pears, apples, vegetables grown outdoors and harvested rice to beehives and tractors. Since there are no statistics specifying theft in the farm sector, experts say grasping the scale of damage is indispensable to come up with countermeasures. According to the National Police Agency data, the number of confirmed cases of criminal offenses totaled 278,619 between January and August this year, the lowest in the last five years. Among them, the number … Continue reading →

TOKYO, Oct. 3 – A research team including the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) has released an estimate that if the world’s average temperature rose 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times due to global warming, it would bring about crop yield losses worth $80 billion, or 8.4 trillion yen, a year. The amount of damage to crop production is equivalent to the total value of the current soybean production in the United States and Brazil. The research shows that the losses could be reduced by 6.4 trillion yen if countermeasures are taken but the rest would remain, and calls for the need to develop and spread technologies to … Continue reading →