Japan's largest farm

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32797, 23 December 1971, Page 11

Japan's largest farm

Mr R. G. Pilling, a senior lecturer in the agricultural economics department at Lincoln College, who is at present spending five months in Japan, has recently visited the country’s largest farm, which comprises about 6000 acres and is situated about 10 miles from Morioka on the main island of Honshu. It lies close to Mount IwateFuji, which at this time of the year is snow covered down to 3000 ft, and close by the longest ski slope in Asia—at least six miles long—is being developed. He says that there are some 300 employees on the property, who live in a virtually self-contained village with post office, primary school, ski-ing area, petrol station, indoor and outdoor recreation areas for adults and children, shops, a beer hall, housing, and communal cooking and dining facilities. There are 180 dairy cows on the property—Holsteins or Friesians —grazing 270 acres. During the winter they are housed. There are also about 100 beef cattle Shorthorn, Angus, Friesian and Japan Black — for research purposes. These also have to be housed in the winter. A major problem, he said, was animal feedstuffs, particularly for the winter, in terms of cost and composition, and he found it significant that even at this stage practical use was being made of feed products from petro-chemicals. although this was still obviously in the development stages. While about 800 acres were devoted to production of hay, it was found more profitable to sell it to local farmers and buy feedstuffs for cattle feeding in the winter than use the hay grown on the farm for farm use, he said.

The farm carried only about 200 sheep, which were of the Corriedale and Shropshire breeds, but there did not appear to be any research done on these animals. Mr Pilling, found that local people regarded mutton as being an acceptable part of their diet. He saw the equivalent of an Irish stew being prepared in which the mutton in sliced form was boiled with various vegetables, and mutton was also cooked over a charcoal brazier. lamb i was also eaten and did no.t seem to pose any odour problems. It also commanded a higher price than mutton, The farm claimed to produce the best butter, cheese and butter sweets on the mainland and’it also had a’high level' of raw milk production, which was homogenised and pasteurised. It drew milk from about 400 neighbouring farms with about 2000 cows.

Among its products were also Im chickens per year for human consumption and this enterprise was increasing rapidly. At present about 1000 acres were, in trees and in the near future it was planned to extend this area to 5000 acres as further land adjacent to the farm was acquired. The period to milling was at least 40 years and research was aimed at increasing the diameter of tree trunks.

Mr Pining said he had been most impressed with the positive, approach shown to increased production, both in terms of quantity and quality. One subject of research was into the future uses of rice byproducts and in particular rice straw, which had a low food value and was mostly returned to thq spil as a fertiliser.