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 | Two days of our IFAJ conference in Japan were spent touring around Miyagi prefecture, one of the most agriculture-intensive areas of the country. Miyagi has a population of 2.37 million people, and is home to 13% of Japan’s agriculture. It’s total annual ag production is approximately $20 million CDN. Rice, produce and livestock are its main [...]   One of our tour stops took us to a local farmer’s market in Miyagi prefecture about two hours north of Tokyo. It was a sight to behold: more than three million customers pass through its doors every year. According to market general manager Jin-ichi Sato, only two places in the entire prefecture – or state/province – [...] A very interesting stop took us to Pearl Rice Milling Miyagi yesterday where we learned how the Japanese make their famous rice. Rice’s growing season starts with planting in early May and ends with harvest in mid-October when the rice plants have turned a brown colour. Following harvest, rice is delivered to a country elevator, where [...] I’ve written already about the Japan’s national drink: green tea. Coming from a coffee-centric culture, it is not always easy to adjust to not having unlimited access to coffee 24/7. Owen and I have resorted to vending machine coffee – not bad surprisingly – as you can see here at our stop at Zen-noh distribution centre [...] Our schedule is tightly packed so a few times we’ve been served a Japanese boxed lunch on the go. This is one example – beautifully presented with many interesting new things: tempura shrimp and chillis, egg, lotus flower, various pickled vegetables, white rice, rice with soy and salmon. Of course, served with the ever-present green tea [...] One of today’s highlights was a trip on the world famous Japanese Shinkansen – bullet train. More than a million people a day pass through Tokyo’s central station every day, so it was no mean feat for our Japanese tour guide to get over 200 somewhat confused Westerners to the right platform and onto the right [...] Probably most well-known to North Americans as Kobe Beef, Japan’s famous Wagyu cattle are world-renowned. The most popular Wagyus are the Japanese black, of which there are 654,000 in the country. Smaller than Charolais or Simmenthals, Waguys are bred only in certain areas of Japan and their genetics are tightly controlled by the state. Of Japan’s [...] |   | ||||
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