Date of visit: April 6 th - 7th, 2017
Weather: Cloudy and later rainy
Hello, everyone! This is Narorin♪
In this Narorin Report or Naroripo, I will tell you about my visit to the Agri-Food Business Innovation Center, NARO (ABIC). It is a brand-new research organization in NARO established on April 2016.
The ABIC Director said, "Let's go to our activity site". So when the project planner took me to bag along, I wonder where they were taking me?! But when I reached the destination, I was surprised to know that I was in Fukuoka Prefecture. Then we entered a lively hall with plenty of people gathered.
It's the venue for 'New Product Exhibition' by Kyushu Division which has a major retail chain representing Japan. ABIC seems to be engaged in activities in order to widely use the technology and varieties developed by NARO in collaboration with private companies and university people around the world. Here they are investigating about exporting new fresh cultivars of strawberries to foreign countries in a new package without causing any damage to them. People from the partner company has come to the exhibition to evaluate the suitability of the new strawberry variety "Koiminori" for export.
Everyone in the venue is associated with a supermarket or a related company, those who came to eat, buyers and sales representatives. The researchers of Kyushu Okinawa Agricultural Research Center, NARO (KARC) who developed the "Koiminori" strawberry were also there to help in the promotional activities. Among the comments about "Koiminori" are "delicious", "juicy but firm pulp", "when this will be marketed" etc.
The meeting was conducted with person in charge of export business. They said that they will soon send this strawberry tentatively on a container ship to Hong Kong! I hope NARO will support it so that people from around the world can eat lots of delicious Japanese strawberries.
The next day I visited a farmer who is cultivating strawberries for export. I was invited to the farm house of strawberry in Aso City, Kumamoto Prefecture where the earthquake hit hard last year and now reconstruction is being promoted. Wow ~! Strawberries have grown in clusters!
The farmer said that "Koiminori" is easy to grow and bear large fruits with uniform shape, thereby saving the time and effort when harvesting.It is cultivated in higher yield, with beautiful color and taste is juicy and delicious. Since there is little damage during transportation, it seems that it got a big reputation in the market even though it is a new variety. In case of "Koiminori", cultivation will not take much time and effort, hence the farmer seems to expand the area of the farm house. He is having huge expectations for this variety ! I wish they cultivate more so that people all over the world can taste the delicious strawberry !!
Next, we headed to the package center of strawberries operated by the Japan Agricultural cooperatives(JA). All the strawberries in the district are gathered here and packed!According to the person-in-charge, strawberries are packed separately according to variety in packages that protect fruits for export.
"Koiminori" which is not only easy to cultivate with good appearance and taste,but also with a combination of technologies that enable the transportation by preserving the freshness, there seems to be some possibility of exporting at an affordable price that has never before. By demonstrating that, the realization of export is expected by having the attention to these technologies by many producers and distributors! In addition, by promoting the demonstration of technology in Kumamoto Prefecture, I think that it can help in the recovery of the areas damaged by the earthquake.
I thought that visiting various places and people together with the project planner and connecting those people is one of the work of the farming business promotion center. The ABIC Director also mentioned they work as "bridge between various people"! It is a perfect teamwork with everyone!!
Wish I could enter the project planner's suitcase and taste Chinese tea and snacks, while listening to the next business trip to Hong Kong.
Now I'm wondering where to go next...
Check here for further details about the Agri-Food Business Innovation Center, NARO.
