Japan produces safe vegetables with all its heart.

Currently, Japan's domestic production of fruits and vegetables only meets about 70-80% of its domestic consumption needs; the rest must be imported. However, the technical standards are quite high, and they produce vegetables with all their heart.

Japan is an industrialized country, similar in length to Vietnam from north to south, with a topography spanning over 25 degrees of latitude; the north has a temperate climate with many months of snow cover, while the south has a relatively warm climate.

With an area ranking 62nd in the world (Vietnam 66th), limited natural resources, and a population of over 120 million, only 3.9% of the workforce is currently employed in agriculture.

Mechanized vegetable harvesting. Photo: Internet

This country also exports its high-quality fruits and vegetables to other markets around the world, and they are highly regarded for their quality, uniformity, and food safety.

So how is safe vegetable production and distribution handled in this country? What can we learn from the experience of the Land of the Rising Sun? Let's discuss and present some of their approaches.

What is GAP like in Japan?

In Japan, the establishment of safe production standards involves a Joint Committee on GAP. Under this committee is an agency responsible for training and disseminating GAP, which provides training on establishing safe production practices under the Japanese GAP (JGAP) framework.

JGAP provides certification to producers with nearly 4,000 instructors. One agency is responsible for licensing, which grants certification to four certification bodies with 123 certified individuals. These certified individuals are responsible for inspecting, evaluating, and monitoring producers seeking certification and are accountable for the quality of the certification to their agency.

The JGAP development approach is very open and bottom-up; producers, businesses, and cooperatives participate in contributing to the development and promulgation of this standard. JGAP is also regularly revised and adjusted to suit the requirements of the market and consumers.

Green onion production in Japan. Photo: Internet

Regarding certification, Japan is currently required to certify products according to JGAP or Global GAP standards because the 2020 Olympic Games were held in the country, requiring certified food products (vegetables, rice, milk, meat, etc.). In reality, they don't place much emphasis on certification because it costs farmers money. The way Japanese farmers operate, their transparency in production documentation and public disclosure of production information, is far more valuable than that certificate.

In Japan, cooperatives and businesses place great emphasis on organizing experiences for urban consumers visiting production areas and sites. This is essentially a form of rural tourism, allowing them to share the hardships of farmers and how they ensure the food safety of their produce, such as vegetables, meat, and dairy products. As a result, consumers have great confidence in the agricultural products produced in their country.

The JGAP standard is built on the framework of GlobalGAP and is comprehensive, complying with the regulations of the Food Safety Law. However, provinces also develop their own standards, and large businesses also have their own food safety standards for local fruits and vegetables, such as AEON.

This standard may be simpler, but it is largely higher than the general baseline standard. They say that for farmers, it's necessary to introduce simpler, easier-to-implement points, and once the awareness of safe production is ingrained, the standard is raised. This raising is to meet market demands, the increasingly high demands of consumers, and the fact that businesses, cooperatives, and farmers themselves are always aware that they need to do better and better to ensure credibility with the market, responsibility to society, and consumers. Consumers have never turned their backs on products produced by farmers.

Currently, the criteria used to evaluate and select agricultural products include environmental friendliness and a 30-50% reduction in the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. In fact, during an entire vegetable growing season (for example, cabbage), the average number of pesticide applications used to be 6-7 times; with the new technical process, this has been reduced to 3-4 times. CHIBA-ECO is one such standard, but it must be said that farmers strictly adhere to the use of pesticides, from type to dosage, and they meticulously record and provide detailed warnings to avoid cross-contamination...

"Japanese farmers produce safe vegetables with all their hearts." This is what we heard at a green onion production cooperative in Ibaraki Prefecture. And throughout the country, this is the same mindset, principles, and discipline of the people. Indeed, quality and safety must come from the heart of the producer.

The entire process of planting, caring for, and using fertilizers, pesticides, and processing must strictly adhere to guidelines and be fully and transparently documented in the manual.

According to Electronic Agriculture