Controversy over Japan’s Shine Muscat cultivation abroad

Japan’s Minister of Agriculture, Shinjiro Koizumi — a leading candidate to succeed Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba — sought to ease tensions on Friday following backlash over his ministry’s handling of a proposed licensing arrangement for the premium Shine Muscat grape variety.

The controversy arose after Yamanashi Governor Kotaro Nagasaki, representing one of Japan’s main Shine Muscat-producing regions, criticised the ministry for holding talks with New Zealand about cultivating the variety abroad without consulting local growers. Nagasaki, accompanied by a representative from the regional agricultural cooperative, met with Koizumi to formally express concerns and urge the government to focus on expanding export markets instead of allowing overseas production.

In response, Koizumi stressed that the ministry had no intention of issuing any cultivation licence without the consent of producers and local authorities. He reaffirmed his commitment to supporting Japanese farmers by boosting exports rather than outsourcing production, adding that any licensing efforts would only move forward with the approval of regional stakeholders.

Koizumi explained that the idea of granting cultivation licences was part of a broader cabinet-approved policy introduced earlier this year for select agricultural products.

The Shine Muscat grape, developed over three decades beginning in the late 1980s by Japan’s national agricultural research institutions, has become one of the country’s most successful fruit exports. However, a lack of early international protections for its seedlings allowed them to spread to China and South Korea, which now grow and export the variety to Southeast Asia. In response, Japan enacted new legislation in 2021 to limit the overseas sale and use of protected plant varieties, aiming to safeguard domestic innovation and maintain the value of its premium crops.

source: reuters.com

photo: mirameetoyou.com