Farming on a Japanese island

Matsumura Farm is located on the island of Hokkaido. In addition to cereals, the farm also grows rice and various types of vegetables. While a lot of things are comparable to Europe, there also are some differences.

Around 125 million people live in Japan. The inhabitants of the island state are known for their extraordinary politeness and helpfulness as well as being very courteous and of an orderly nature. They attach major importance to act in accordance with rules and regulations. Although Japan consists of around 14,000 islands, only about 425 of them are inhabited. 98% of the people live on the four main islands Hokkaido (in the north), Honshu (in the centre), Shikoku and Kyushu (in the south). As there are numerous mountains and the population density is very high, only approx. 15 % of the land can be used for agriculture.

Hokkaido, an island of 83,000 km² and home to 5.2 million people, is only about a one hour flight away from the capital Tokyo. The main economic sectors of the island are tourism and agriculture – with about one quarter of the total arable land of Japan. Thus, the island plays an important role in the food supply of the country. The more so as the structure of the farms is less fragmented than in the rest of the country.

Arable and vegetable farming in Japan

Matsumura Farm is located on Hokkaido, to be more precisely in Naganuma, and is run by the third generation. Hiroyuki Matsumura farms a total of 95 ha and mainly grows wheat, soybeans, rice and vegetables. About 35 ha are close to the farm premises, the rest is spread in the surrounding area. Every year, soybeans and wheat are grown on 75 ha of the land as well as rice on 6.5 ha. In the past years, the farm size doubled, and they want to add more land in the future. However, it is difficult to find land. The little available land is used for housing to cope with the increasingly growing population.

The harvest volume of Matsumura Farm is in line with the Japanese average. Around 6.5 t of wheat and 3 t of soybeans are harvested per hectare. Rice is harvested with a special rice thresher, cleaned and then dried directly on site. Therefore, the farm invested a lot of money in its own, large drying plant. The rice then is packed externally and sold at a local farmers‘ market.
While Hiroyuki Matsumura carries out all the agronomic tasks himself, four permanent and three temporary employees support him with regard to harvesting, packaging and marketing the vegetables. The vegetables are harvested manually, sorted and then prepared for sale. One speciality in the spring are cut flowers which are also sold at the market. The market takes place in a large hall where farmers from the region offer their products for sale in small shops.

In addition to the rice thresher and six tractors of different categories, the farm has been working with a HORSCH Mono for deep loosening as well as with a Terrano. After a machine demonstration five years ago, Hiroyuki Matsumura also bought an Express KR. He was particularly convinced by the precise placement of the seed and the precise emergence. And the Express still completely meets his high requirements in this respect.

Challenges in farming

In Japan, too, farmers are facing the increasing challenge that the income from farming remains at the same level while the costs for fertiliser, seed and other investments increase considerably.
Moreover, because of the climate change, the optimum time windows for working in the fields have become very short. This is why the farmers have to make optimum use of this period. ITSC, a Japanese dealer for tractors and among others HORSCH machines, is convinced that HORSCH is the best brand to meet these requirements. The dealer mainly sells Joker, Terrano, Cultro and Express – these machines are very popular in the Japanese market due to the long service life, precision and efficiency.

Efficient sales partners

However, one major challenge is the availability of spare parts as a direct shipment from Europe takes too long and is too expensive. ITSC found a rather unorthodox but still efficient solution. To avoid long downtimes of the machines, the company always buys 1 to 2 machines more and uses the parts of these additional machines as spare parts for the machines of the customers. Thus, they can quickly deliver the parts - and gain time to reorder the spare parts.