【News】 20% of cattle slaughterhouses adopt HACCP food safety control system: ministry survey (Sept. 29, 2015)

  Nearly 20 percent of cattle slaughterhouses nationwide have adopted Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point, an internationally accepted system of identifying specific hazards and measures for their control to assure food safety, a farm ministry survey revealed. The figure rises to more than half when facilities which plan to introduce or prepare for introduction of the system within three years are included. More than 10 percent of pig slaughterhouses and 20 percent of large-scale poultry processing plants have also adopted the system, according to the survey which was conducted for the first time. 27 out of 138 cattle slaughterhouses, or 19.6 percent of the total, said they have adopted … Continue reading

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【News】 Students polishing oaring skills in middle of beautiful rice fields (Sept. 27, 2015)

Kotaro Yamada Here in the agricultural water channel in the Kurume-shi, Fukuoka Prefecture, you’ll see young paddlers on canoes practicing almost every day. They are students of Fukuoka Prefectural Mizuma High School and members of the Canoe Club of the school. The channel of 20 meters wide and 1 kilometer long is calm and very quiet. It’s almost waveless and windless thanks to the bank. “The channel provides perfect conditions for practicing canoe and our students have an advantage in being able to practice almost every day even in the rough weather,” Kazuhiko Tomimatsu, a 43-year-old teacher of the high school and an advisor to the club, explained. Through repeated … Continue reading

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【News】 Japan agricultural co-ops group delegation to make last-minute call on TPP talks (Sept. 26, 2015)

  The Japan agricultural co-operatives (JA) group plans to send a delegation to Atlanta, where member nations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade initiative are scheduled to hold a ministerial meeting starting Wednesday, Sept. 30. The delegation, to be headed by Choe Okuno, president of the Central Union of Agricultural Co-operatives (JA-Zenchu), will call on the Japanese government to protect key farm items in line with the Diet resolutions. The group made the decision at a committee meeting on Friday, Sept. 25, along with its policy to also lobby lawmakers domestically in each prefecture. JA-Zenchu officials pointed out that the prospects of the TPP negotiations remain unclear, as there have been … Continue reading

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【Editorial】 After security laws comes TPP (Sept. 26, 2015)

  Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a press conference on Friday, Sept. 25, ahead of the closing of the Diet session two days after, and reaffirmed the significance of the security legislation which was passed in the Diet after heated arguments. Various challenges for the future were left in the Diet session, where many important bills were passed, including the one to revise the Agricultural Co-operative Society Law. Abe is scheduled to visit the United States starting Saturday, Sept. 26. Farmers are worried that his next target after the security laws would be to forcibly conclude the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade talks. We strongly call on the government to follow the … Continue reading

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【News】 Farmer of Joso struggles to recover from floods (Sept. 17, 2015)

Daishi Harajiri A farmer of Joso, Ibaraki Prefecture, severely hit by the heavy rain and floods which occurred a week ago, is at a loss of how to recover his business. His rice paddies, farming equipment and harvested rice had all been submerged in muddy water, making it impossible to deliver the produce to customers. Isamu Wada, 64, grows rice on a 60-hectare land in the city’s Ono district, out of which 55 is rented. 35 hectares were yet to be harvested when the banks of the Kinugawa River collapsed on Thursday, Sept. 10. Muddy streams flew into the district located east of the river, damaging all the rice paddies. … Continue reading

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