Environment Scientists press farmers to adapt to the new normal

[thomas]

I guess we all have to eat cake instead:

Extreme heat in Japan is increasingly being recognised as the "new normal." This warning comes from Tomoyoshi Hirota, professor of agricultural meteorology at Kyushu University's graduate school, after temperatures in Hyōgo Prefecture recently reached a record-breaking 41.2 degrees. Across the country, highs of 39 degrees, once considered rare only a decade ago, are now appearing with unsettling regularity. Hirota urged farmers to adjust their outlook and focus on developing crop varieties capable of enduring intense heat. Such a shift, he explained, also means rethinking how and when fertilisers are applied to vegetables, making use of long-term weather forecasts alongside personal farming experience.

The relentless heat has already begun to take its toll. Poultry farms report chickens suffering from summer exhaustion, while fruit and vegetable growers are struggling with declining yields. At the same time, wholesale trading prices have climbed above the levels seen two years ago, when soaring costs became known as the "egg shock." With extreme weather striking traditional fruit- and vegetable-producing regions, calls are growing for farmers to take proactive steps. Many experts argue that agriculture must now be planned with the assumption that sweltering summer conditions will no longer be the exception but a permanent reality.

At the Hotoku Nojo poultry yard in Omitama, Ibaraki Prefecture, where 200,000 hens lay around 170,000 eggs a day, cooling pads are utilized to help the birds cope. Even so, the mercury inside the henhouse can reach 30 degrees, well above the comfortable range of 20 to 25 degrees. Hens are particularly vulnerable to high temperatures because they lack pores in their skin and cannot cool down by sweating. [...] The monthly average value of one kilogram of M-size eggs for the Tokyo area, which is released by JA Z-Tamago Co. to serve as an indicator of transaction prices, was 330 yen ($2.20) as of July 25. This figure is 10 yen higher than for the same period in 2023, when the index peaked at 350 yen due to the avian flu outbreak. Higher prices have also been reported in Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka. The latest farm ministry survey on food prices found that a 10-egg carton averaged 299 yen at supermarkets across Japan, up more than 20 percent year on year. Also contributing to prolonged high egg prices is the lingering effect of the avian flu epidemic last winter that led to 8.4 million chickens, or upward of 6 percent of the total stock in Japan, being culled.

The same applies to veggies:

Ryuichi Masuda, a 38-year-old member of the JA Amakusa agricultural cooperative, explained that vegetables were struggling to endure the relentless heat, which in turn was leaving them vulnerable to insect damage. He remarked that harvesting cucumbers in large quantities this year would no longer be feasible. Turning to corn, Masuda pointed out that the unusually short rainy season in June had disrupted the timing of male and female flowering. As a result, kernels had developed sparsely, leaving the yield at only about half of what had initially been expected. Local farmers, he observed, were preparing to switch to cherry tomato cultivation from August onwards. Kumamoto Prefecture produces around 20% of Japan's cherry tomato crop, being the country's largest supplier. Yet even here, the extreme conditions had taken their toll, with Masuda noting that one neighbouring farmer had lost every single tomato seedling to the heat. He reflected that the problem was not limited to one or two crops but was affecting vegetables more broadly, adding that it felt as though the natural environment itself had been transformed in just a few years.

Farmers urged to adapt to the ‘new normal,’ or whither in heat | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis