Former Japanese farming trainees: stay in the Netherlands was eye-opening
On 29 November some 60 professionals in the agribusiness, aspiring farmers and students and researchers from agriculture universities gathered at the Dutch Embassy in Tokyo for a workshop on modern farm management. The workshop provided information on Dutch green education and vocational training and offered a platform for former Japanese farming trainees to the Netherlands to share their experiences with a larger audience.
The workshop (progamme with links to presentations) was organized in collaboration with the Japan Agricultural Exchange Council (JAEC), responsible for sending already 480 Japanese trainees to the Netherlands since 1963. Chargé d’Affaires of the Dutch Embassy in Japan Theo Peters welcomed the audience with some personal anecdotes about his own experiences as a farming hand in his student years. Karen Bakhuisen, responsible for International Education and Knowledge Cooperation at the Ministry of LNV and Marlous Mens-Vos, managing director at Stichting Uitwisseling (SUSP), talked about opportunities for green education and training in the Netherlands and more specific about the requirements for trainees (such as bicycle skills!). Jos Verstegen, senior researcher Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation at Wageningen Economic Research and also visiting professor at Miyazaki Sangyo-keiei University and Kochi University, gave an inspirational key note speech about the challenges for sustainable food production in the Netherlands and about the competences needed to accommodate an increasingly demanding market. Japan’s transition to sustainable food production, on the other hand, first and foremost requires its agriculture to be invigorated. To this end, policy changes would be necessary, but Verstegen also emphasized the importance of agricultural education and exchange programs to support a new generation of farmers.
“I saw where Japan will be in 10 years, I saw my own company in 10 years! – Daisuke Somekawa”
After the presentations, three former trainees talked about the impact of their stay in the Netherlands on their professional careers. The different, professional mindset of Dutch farmers, insisting on being independent and continuously analyzing their business, as well as the scale of farming were some of the experiences that remained with them after their return to Japan pursuing their own careers in agribusiness.
The three professionals – vegetable grower Kohei Ide, dairy farmer Midori Suzuki, and Daisuke Somekawa, now working at Rijkzwaan Japan - then joined Verstegen to discuss the future of Japan’s agriculture from their own perspective. While scaling up food production was considered as one option to realize sustainable agriculture, both Suzuki and Ide had opted for orientation at local markets where they could more easily connect to consumers. All panelists agreed that raising consumer awareness of what it takes to produce sustainable products and the costs involved is one of the biggest challenges for farmers everywhere, as is farmers’ weak bargaining position within the supply chain. On a positive note, Somekawa found that the newer and younger generation of farmers is changing. In his opinion, Japanese farmers could learn from the Netherlands by visiting there to see Japan’s situation 10 years from now on. He felt that the Netherlands is always 10 years ahead of Japan, for example as regards producers groups which only now start to be formed in Japan. Another example was how the Dutch government had enabled farm land consolidation, an issue yet to be resolved in Japan.
Verstegen, in turn, encouraged the speakers and audience to also cherish Japan’s great agricultural assets, being the large public support for the government’s subsidies to farmers in rural areas and consumer willingness to spend up to 25% of their income on food. In addition to the fact that sustainable production may also lead to less costs, when production is managed more efficiently and productively, these assets may well support the future of Japan’s agriculture.
The workshop was followed by a lively network reception.
The workshop has been recorded and will be available at the JAEC website, hopefully contributing to new generations of Japanese agribusiness professionals with a link to the Netherlands. The event was part of “Common Ground – Road 2 Osaka” activities, organized with a view to the World Expo Osaka 2025 and beyond.