TOKYO, April 11 – Japan is seeing a huge growth in exports of strawberries, with February shipments posting 493 tons, topping 1 billion yen in terms of value in a month for the first time, according to the Finance Ministry’s trade statistics. The monthly volume of exports exceeded 400 tons for two months in a row, reflecting growing reputation for the high quality of Japan-grown strawberries and strong demand for the fruit during the stay-home period amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Japan’s strawberries are shipped to areas including Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan and the United States. The exports began to increase in 2014 and marked a record high of 1,237 … Continue reading →

TOKYO, April 6 – The approval rate for Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s Cabinet was 40 percent in a survey conducted in March by The Japan Agricultural News. The rate was down 4 percentage points from the previous survey in December which marked a drop of 18 percentage points from the survey conducted in September immediately after Suga took office. The disapproval rate was 59 percent, up 3 percentage points. The Japan Agricultural News sent the survey by mail between mid-March and late March to 1,133 monitors, mainly farmers, and received responses from 818 people. Out of the respondents, 56 percent said they don’t rate the Suga Cabinet’s agricultural policies highly, … Continue reading →

TOKYO, Mar. 28 – According to a survey by the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) of Japan, the habitat ranges of Japanese deer and wild boars expanded in 2020 to about twice the ranges identified in the initial survey in 1978. The ministry estimates the habitat of the animals based on hunting reports and interviews with prefectures. MOE takes the method of dividing the whole country into 25-square-kilometer quadrats and identifying the quadrats with the animals. The latest report said the deer were found in 11,563 quadrats and the wild boars in 9,641 quadrats. Compared to the initial survey in 1978, the deer and wild boar habitats expanded 2.7-fold and … Continue reading →

TOKYO, Mar. 27 – Japan’s Cabinet approved a budget for fiscal 2021 at a plenary meeting of the House of Councilors on March 26, 2021, by a majority vote, with support mainly from the ruling coalition. The general account budget for the next fiscal year starting in April is 106,609.7 billion yen in total, setting a record for the ninth straight year. The budget includes agriculture, forestry and fisheries spending of 2.305 trillion yen, down 5.9 billion yen from fiscal 2020. It decreased for the first time in three years. It also included a 9.9-billion-yen budget for the export of agriculture, forestry and fishery products and foods, one of the … Continue reading →