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April 25, 2025
 

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AGRICULTURE

On Sunday, authorities in Iwate Prefecture began culling some 50,000 chickens Sunday after an outbreak of bird flu.
JAPAN
Jan 5, 2025
Bird flu outbreaks strike Iwate Prefecture farms
It is the 19th bird flu outbreak of the season in Japan, the agriculture ministry said.
A recovery in the olive harvest in Spain and elsewhere is easing the olive oil crisis, but depleted stocks and rising global demand mean prices will likely stay higher than pre-crisis levels.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 3, 2025
The olive oil crisis is over — but fears continue to linger
Prices for the golden commodity are set to drop thanks to a bountiful harvest this season. That doesn’t solve all its problems.
Although meat consumption has been dropping, it's not happening quickly enough to meet climate targets, something to keep in mind over the holidays.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2024
Why are my vegan friends going back to meat?
Helping people eat healthier diets with more fruit, vegetables and fiber would have enormous benefits for human well-being and the planet.
People cover themselves with umbrellas during a hot summer day in Tokyo's Ginza district in August. Temperatures shot up in early July, even before the official end of the rainy season, and the high temperatures persisted well into the fall.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / OUR PLANET
Dec 29, 2024
Japan’s weather in 2024: Record temperatures hurt people’s health and wallets
Average temperatures across the nation and surrounding seas exceeded last year’s record-breaking levels "by a significant margin," affecting everything from well-being to farming.
The central Hokkaido city of Asahikawa made headlines this year when one of its suburbs was named as the best place to live in Japan — a ranking earned in part due to the community's many outstanding restaurants and cafes.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Dec 28, 2024
How Hokkaido quietly became a culinary treasure trove in 2024
Food trucks, morsels with cutesy cues from nature and more helped Japan’s northernmost island have a stellar year.
A strawberry sales area at the Motegi roadside rest station in the town of Motegi, Tochigi Prefecture. As part of measures to address the shortage of successors, the roadside rest station is collaborating with farmers and others to sell locally grown agricultural products.
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2024
Support planned for roadside rest stations as regional development hubs
The facilities, which started out mainly as rest places for drivers, have taken on wide-ranging roles, from tourism and agriculture to disaster prevention.
Efforts to reduce methane emissions from dairy cows in the U.K. using the feed additive Bovaer, proven safe and effective, have sparked public backlash fueled by misinformation and conspiracy theories.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 16, 2024
No, sanitizing cow burps won’t sour your milk or contaminate your cheese
The problem the project addresses is real enough. Beef and dairy products are extremely carbon-intensive food items.
There is no guarantee that bird flu will ever begin transmitting between humans, and U.S. health authorities have emphasized that the risk to the general public remains low.
WORLD
Dec 12, 2024
'Knocking on our door': Experts warn of bird flu's pandemic threat
U.S. health authorities have emphasized that the risk to the general public remains low.
A farmer burns straw stubble after harvesting a paddy field on the outskirts of Jind in India's Haryana state on Nov. 26.
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Dec 3, 2024
The farm fires helping to fuel India's deadly air
Burning is a cheap way to clear fields for new crops, making it hard for farmers to shift to other methods despite the consequences.
Mika Abe (right) opened a restaurant committed to animal welfare in Sendai in November.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Dec 2, 2024
Restaurant committed to animal welfare opens in Sendai
Muku offers dishes including grilled pork from pasture-raised pigs and poached eggs from cage-free chickens, served as part of a salad bowl.
Global beef consumption has slowed and the carbon footprint of the global cattle herd may already be declining.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 26, 2024
Peak beef could already be here
Global beef consumption has slowed and the carbon footprint of the global cattle herd may already be declining.
Ukraine’s government has turbocharged its pitch for international help in land-mine clearance, attracting a rush of special machinery from Japan and funds from philanthropist Howard Buffett with astonishing results.
WORLD
Nov 17, 2024
Ukraine supercharges mine-clearing push to revive war-torn farms
Safe access to farmland is essential for a country known as Europe’s breadbasket and demining Ukraine could take decades.
This September, six years after planting, researchers successfully cultivated 12 black truffles totaling 200 grams.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Nov 14, 2024
Japan researchers achieve second success in artificial black truffle cultivation
While black truffles do grow naturally in Japan, cultivation methods are still underdeveloped, prompting ongoing research.
Groove Armada’s Andy Cato at his farm in Oxfordshire, U.K.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Oct 28, 2024
How a DJ became an unlikely champion for green farming
Over the past six years, Andy Cato has built a network of more than 100 farmers in the U.K. and France to grow wheat using regenerative farming methods.
Flooding in Feni, Bangladesh, on Aug. 25. Bangladesh's agriculture ministry said such flooding this year has resulted in a substantial loss of rice production.
WORLD
Oct 20, 2024
Floods destroy 1.1 million tons of rice in Bangladesh
Floods in Bangladesh have destroyed about 1.1 million metric tons of rice, leading to increased imports amid rising food prices.
Hokkaido Gov. Naomichi Suzuki speaks about measures against the spread of bird flu on Thursday.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Oct 17, 2024
Hokkaido reports Japan's first bird flu case of the season
The report is the country's earliest confirmed bird flu case at a domestic poultry farm in over two decades. 
Starbucks has 10 support centers around the world where agronomists work with farmers on research and best practices.
BUSINESS
Oct 3, 2024
Starbucks buys research farms as climate change threatens coffee supply
Bolstering the coffee industry’s climate resilience has taken on fresh urgency this year.
Cracked ground at a farm in Lincoln, U.K. Extreme weather worldwide is pushing up prices for food staples in ways that could eventually flow through to higher grocery bills.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Oct 1, 2024
Rising food costs due to extreme weather likely to drive up grocery bills
One index of nine major food products has recorded a monthly gain of more than 7% — the most since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent markets soaring in early 2022.
Tetsuya Ike, a farmer in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, examines a site where his greenhouse farm used to be before it was washed away by last week's torrential rain.
JAPAN
Sep 27, 2024
Farmers struggle to rebuild after devastating rains in Wajima
Fields that had recently begun to recover from the damage caused by the Jan. 1 quake have been submerged by torrential downpours.
The rice harvest ramped up this month and will ease a supply squeeze, but farmers and Japan’s main grain distributor have agreed to higher contract prices.
JAPAN
Sep 24, 2024
Rice inflation to persist despite harvest, as prices rise over 20% on year
Tokyo shoppers were paying 23% more than a year ago for 5 kilogram bags of rice last month, while wholesale prices have risen 28% — the biggest hike since 1975.
Amid uncertain tariffs, is now the time to buy a new iPhone?
An Apple store in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward in September. Prices for the newest iPhone models start at around ¥100,000 ($700) in Japan.
Japan must correct Trump’s false data for trade talks, says Kono
Former Foreign Minister Taro Kono
Japan wants to 'separate' tariff and security issues. That may be tough.
Japan’s chief tariff negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, poses with a "Make America Great Again" cap at the White House in Washington on April 16.
Social media helps fuel growing 'sex tourism' in Japan
People walk down a street in the red-light entertainment area of Kabukicho in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo on March 31.
Japan set to fine cyclists on the spot for rule violations from 2026
Under new rules, those who use smartphones while riding a bicycle would be subject to the maximum fine of ¥12,000.
Amid uncertain tariffs, is now the time to buy a new iPhone?
An Apple store in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward in September. Prices for the newest iPhone models start at around ¥100,000 ($700) in Japan.
Built in a flash, Osaka Expo pavilions wrestle with sustainability
Kengo Kuma & Associates oversaw the construction of the Malaysia pavilion, which is encased in interwoven rows of bamboo that appear to ripple.
Japan weighs using U.S. rice imports as tariff negotiation tool with Trump
A restaurant owner pours California-grown Calrose rice into a rice cooker at his restaurant in Tokyo
Is Japan’s parliament ready to welcome more youth to its ranks?
Lower House lawmaker Kai Odake in his Tokyo office on Wednesday
Crow meat, goat tartare: Mauvaise Herbe raises its game
Crow meat, shaped into a ball and attached to a foot of the bird, is one of the peculiar offerings of game at Mauvaise Herbe.

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One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
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