Report No.221006
Vol.22 No. 10 June 2005

Newly Published Basic Plan for Research Stimulates Hope for Rich Harvests in 10 Year Time

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) has recently formulated a basic plan for research works in the field agriculture, forestry and fisheries, which sets out attainment goals over the next 10 years. Priority targets were specified taking into account the new Basic Plan for Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas etc., and they include the strengthening of competitive capacity of Japanese agriculture, forestry and fisheries as well as the enhancement of food safety and so forth. Let us hope that related research institutes produce as many useful results as possible and motivate people on the sites of production.

The basic plan for research sets out priority targets to be challenged by independent administrative corporations, research institutions at prefecture level, universities and researchers in the private sector. The plan is reviewed in every four to 6 years so the research works will reflect ever changing environment. Recent research has been promoted along the Basic Targets of Research in Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries formulated in 1999, and the new plan means their revision after six years.

Items selected for research cover wide-ranging fields from product-wise cultural technology and environment to biomass and to robotics. What is especially impressive about the new plan is that a large number of research targets are listed to develop new breeds that will be suitable for processing - a reflection of deeper recognition of the needs of business users. For example, such breeds of rice as will not get hard even when they get cool on shop' s shelf so they will fit better for making o-nigiri [stuffed rice balls, often wrapped in seaweed], and such a variety of onion as is big in size and has a high yield in packing process so it fits merchandized for cut vegetable.

The plan also gives much greater emphasis on enhanced safety of foods and on obtaining consumers' trust, which is a reflection of events that shook safety and peace of mind about foods. Targets in this category include elucidation of the mechanism of an outbreak of BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) and development of its swift diagnostic technology, development of simpler-to-use and swifter-to-diagnose technology for critical animal disease such as highly pathogenic strain of avain influenza (foul plague). Technology will also be pursued that will tell the variety and area of production by DNA analysis.

The new plan is so designed as to show the targets of attainment in five-year and ten-year times with as much clear numerical indications as possible. For instance, the target for soybean is set for achieving a 10% increase in ten-year time through an optimal combination of cropping systems. For apple culture, 20% reduction in labor hours is to be pursued through training techniques that will allow maximum use of dwarf rootstock.

Let us have a bit more detailed image of attainment target from an example of variety development of paddy. A research work is planned based on a presumption that there is demand for the product to be developed. Sales of non-symbiotic packed rice has grown from 48 billion yen in 2003 to predictably more than 100 billion yen in 2008. Based on this forecast, a research target is set to breed a new rice variety with a 10% higher yield that will fit for making o-nigiri as well as making non-symbiotic packages. Whatever the outcome will be, we hope that such a numerically expressed clear target would serve to give inducement to research workers.

The basic plan also lists up measures to be reinforced to facilitate the research such as closer industry-government-academic cooperation and communication with citizens and so forth.

While the plan appears more tilted towards consumers, the targets, as they are numerically expressed, look more acceptable to farmers, too, who are the major users of the result of research. For instance, they include 20% reduction in the cost producing compost. This may look sort of a subdued theme, but expectation of livestock farmers must be great.

The extent of attainment of the research works will be evaluated by learned persons in the future. We would hope that many research works get high scores so they will contribute to the development of agriculture.

(from an editorial in the April 14, 2005 issue of the Nihon Nogyo Shimbun)

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