Japan produces safe vegetables with all its heart

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

Japan is an industrial country and also a country with a length from North to South similar to Vietnam, the terrain extends to more than 25 degrees of latitude; the North has a temperate climate, with many months of snow cover, the South has a fairly warm climate.

Area ranked 62nd in the world (Vietnam ranked 66th), not rich in resources, population over 120 million people, currently only 3.9% of the workforce is in agriculture.

Harvesting vegetables by mechanization. Photo: Internet

The country also exports its premium fruits and vegetables to other markets around the world and is highly regarded for its quality, consistency, and food safety.

So how is safe vegetable production and distribution in this country? What can we learn from the experience of the land of the rising sun? Let us discuss and cite some of their approaches.

How is GAP in Japan?

The establishment of safe production standards in Japan has a Joint Committee on GAP. Under this agency is an agency responsible for training and disseminating GAP, they are responsible for training in the establishment of safe production JGAP (Japanese GAP).

JGAP for producers with nearly 4,000 trainers. One agency responsible for licensing, they issue 4 certification units with 123 certifiers. These certifiers are responsible for inspecting, evaluating and monitoring producers who request certification and are responsible for the quality of certification before their agency.

JGAP is developed with a very open and bottom-up approach; producers, businesses and cooperatives contribute to the development and promulgation of this standard. JGAP is also regularly revised and adjusted to suit market and consumer requirements.

Green onion production in Japan. Photo: Internet

Regarding certification, at this time Japan is required to certify products according to JGAP or Global GAP standards because the 2020 Olympic Games will be held in this country, accordingly, foods (vegetables, rice, milk, meat, etc.) must be certified. In fact, they do not focus on certification because it costs farmers money. Just seeing the way Japanese farmers do things, the transparency in expressing, recording production and publicizing production information, it is much more valuable than that certificate.

In Japan, cooperatives or enterprises pay great attention to organizing experiences for consumers in cities with production areas and locations, which is also a form of rural tourism to share with each other about the hardships of farmers and how they ensure food safety for vegetables, meat, milk, etc. Therefore, consumers have great confidence in agricultural products produced in their country.

The JGAP standard is built on the framework of GlobalGAP and is comprehensive, complying with the provisions of the Food Safety Law. However, provinces also develop their own standards, large enterprises also have their own standards on food safety for local fruit and vegetable products, companies such as AEON.

This standard may be simpler, but it is mostly higher than the general background standard. They say that farmers need to come up with simpler, easier-to-implement points, and when the awareness of safe production has become ingrained in their blood, the standard is raised, raised to meet market demand, the increasing demand of consumers, and the enterprises, 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 the products that farmers produce.

Currently, the incentive criteria are given to evaluate and vote for agricultural products, which are environmentally friendly, reducing the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides by 30 - 50%. In fact, in a whole vegetable growing season (for example, cabbage), the number of times pesticides were sprayed was previously 6 - 7 times on average, but now with the new technical process, it has been reduced to 3 - 4 times. CHIBA-ECO is one of such standards, but it must be said that farmers strictly follow the use of pesticides, from type to dosage, and they record meticulously, warn meticulously to avoid cross-contamination...

“Japanese farmers produce safe vegetables with all their heart.” This is what we heard at a green onion cooperative in Ibaraki Prefecture. And all over the country, the awareness, principles, and discipline of the people are like that. It is true that quality and safety must come from the heart of the producer.

The process of planting, caring for, using fertilizers, pesticides, processing... must strictly follow the instructions, and the notebook must be fully and transparently recorded./.

According to Electronic Agriculture