Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science, NARO

The most urgent issues in the Japanese livestock industry are to enhance the production base by increasing the number of beef breeding cattle, to increase the production of Wagyu beef and to expand exports. To achieve these goals, we need to improve productivity and reduce the labor burden through the full utilization of public pasture as support organizations, and implementation of new technologies, such as ICT and IoT.
The Labor-Saving Beef Cattle Husbandry Group is engaged in research on the development of grazing management technology for beef breeding cattle and grassland management technology using ICT and IoT, mainly for public pastures. Furthermore, we will establish a management system in public pasture that enables an increase in the number of beef cattle by reducing labor through the introduction of these technologies.
Additional potassium fertilizer application has been applied to suppress the radiocesium transfer from soil to forage grass in contaminated grassland. For optimization of the potassium application rate, we evaluate soil conditions, soil amendments and use of low radiocesium-uptake grass species that reduce potassium fertilizer requirement while suppressing radiocesium transfer. Moreover, we are working towards the mitigation of greenhouse gases by land application of biochar and livestock manure and promotion of grazing. Our research is aiming to maintain and improve forage productivity and to reduce greenhouse gases simultaneously.