Tag Archives: News

  In an effort to promote farm products branding, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries plans to legislate protection of geographic indications by submitting a bill to the ordinary Diet session which will begin on January 24. The bill, if passed in the Diet, will enable the government to establish quality standards for goods, including their manufacturing method, which have characteristics associated with particular regions, and set up a third-party institution to certify products under the standards. The government aims to control fake products, as well as taking measures against food misrepresentation cases which occurred at major hotels, restaurants and department stores last year. The planned geographic indication system … Continue reading →

    Keita Takeuchi A research team including Hitachi Zosen Corp. has discovered that phosphate rocks, the main raw material for chemical fertilizers, can be replaced by phosphorus coal extracted from carbonized pig feces to the maximum of 40 percent to create a fertilizer with the same quality. Operation tests were conducted by Osaka-based Hitachi Zosen, University of Miyazaki, Kumamoto University and Research Institute of Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries, Osaka Prefecture. Swine manure is considered a low-cost natural resource, but an effective way to utilize it has not been developed. Its procurement cost will be low, since hog raising farms are concentrated in regions such as Kyushu and Kanto. On … Continue reading →

  The government’s new advisory council on National Strategic Special Zones held its first meeting on Tuesday, January 7, and decided to focus in the coming two years on tackling so-called “bedrock” regulations, whose abolishment have been hampered for decades by strong opposition from related industries and ministries. The law to designate special zones across Japan with looser regulations and special tax incentives was passed in the Diet in December. The advisory council headed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which is vested with strong authority in determining the course of the government, aims to experiment with drastic deregulatory measures in the zones – the centerpiece of Abe’s growth strategy to … Continue reading →

  The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries will focus on encouraging consolidation of farmlands between fiscal 2013 and 2015, by establishing a fund to offer more money to districts which provide larger proportion of land to farmland consolidation banks. The banks will be created in each prefecture before the end of March in line with a legislation passed in the Diet. The banks will rent farmlands from aged farmers and others who have difficulty cultivating the land, replot them to form larger plots with proper agricultural infrastructure and lend them to large-scale farmers and agricultural corporations. The ministry hopes to work intensively in the three years to speed up … Continue reading →

  The area of abandoned farmlands is estimated to total 272,000 hectares nationwide as of 2012, dropping for two consecutive years, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The decline is due to increasing area of recovered farmlands and shifting of abandoned farmlands into forests and plains. The ministry has since 2008 been encouraging local governments and agricultural commissions in each municipality to take such measures to reduce abandoned farmlands. As a result, the area of abandoned farmlands peaked at 292,000 hectares in 2010, and has continued to shrink since then, marking 278,000 hectares in 2011 and 272,000 hectares in 2012. Meanwhile, the area of recovered farmlands has … Continue reading →