Sennen Akari Festival: 20,000 bamboo lanterns emit warm glow in Hita City, Oita Prefecture

OITA, Nov. 14 – In the middle of November, Hita City, Oita Prefecture, held an annual event called Sennen Akari (meaning “a thousand years of lights” in Japanese), featuring fantastic displays of lanterns made of locally-cut bamboo. Around 20,000 candles were lit along the Mameda Town and Kagetsu river areas with historic buildings to create a dreamy atmosphere. The locals began the festival in 2004 to revitalize the local economy and protect local specialties such as cedars and hinoki cypress from bamboo. They cut Moso-Chiku, the biggest bamboo found in Japan, in the bamboo groves next to local cedar and cypress forests every year to make lanterns. The lanterns emitting … Continue reading

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Exports of watercored yellow apples soar amid rising demand in Asia

TOKYO, Nov. 17 – Gunma Meigetsu, a yellow apple variety, with water core, a sign that the fruit has more sugar than most apples of the same variety, is recently attracting popularity at home and abroad. The variety is large in size, weighing roughly 300-350 grams each, and has high-quality flavor, with its sugar content at 15 degrees Brix or more. JA Tsugaru Mirai, an agricultural cooperative in Aomori Prefecture, is focusing on exporting the fruit to respond to growing demand in the Asian markets, shipping 60% of high-grade Gunma Meigetsu overseas. Amid aging of farmers and climate change, the number of yellow apple varieties with high sugar content is … Continue reading

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Sweet potatoes taking root in Naraha Town, Fukushima Prefecture

FUKUSHIMA, Nov. 7 – Sweet potato acreage is expanding in Naraha Town, Fukushima Prefecture. The town has expanded the production acreage to approximately 50 hectares and opened one of Japan’s largest storage facilities in cooperation with a private company. The evacuation order due to the Great East Japan Earthquake and the accident at the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima No.1 Nuclear Power Station was lifted seven years ago. Since then, the town has been steadily recovering with its focus on sweet potatoes. On a sunny day in late October, Tomio Ikari, 67, dug for plump sweet potatoes. “Everyone here used to grow them privately in the garden,” recalled the chairman … Continue reading

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Japan Flowers and Plants Export Association to seek government certification as an organization to promote exports

TOKYO, Nov. 5 – Japan Flowers and Plants Export Association, an industrial body working to boost exports of flowers and plants, held a general meeting on Nov. 4 after becoming a general incorporated association to be officially designated under the law to promote exports. The association will carry out procedures to be certified by the government as an organization to step up exports of certain items, so that it can obtain government assistance in promoting sales of cut flowers, garden plants and bonsai potted trees in foreign countries. Under the revised law on facilitating the export of agricultural, forestry and fishery products and food which took effect in October, a … Continue reading

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Kurumeki’s terraced rice field holds rice cutting event with outside supporters

SHIZUOKA, Oct. 31 – In late October, a rice harvesting and hanging event was held in tanada (tiered rice paddies) in Kurumeki, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, inviting outside tanada supporters. The participants worked hard, tackling golden ears of rice under the autumn blue sky. Kurumeki Tanada has a long history dating back to the Heian or Muromachi era. In the Sengoku period (the period of civil wars in Japan), the Ii clan supported villagers in cultivating the field. Farmers growing rice with poor water sources and no waterways face difficulties in securing enough water, so they collect rainwater in the rainy season in June to prepare for rice planting. The region … Continue reading

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