THERE are now 50 future agri-business leaders who are confident the Japanese Government is committed to building strong business and trade relations with New Zealand.
In the first week of this month, the Japan East Network of Exchange for Students and Youths (JENSEYS) took a group of 50 young people in agriculture (mainly between the ages of 25 and 35) to Japan on an all expenses paid trip to the world’s largest importer.
The trip came about following bilateral talks between New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully and his then counterpart, Hirofumi Nakasone, who introduced an invitation plan for another 50 young New Zealanders to visit Japan on top of the existing delegates.
This year, for the first time, the exchange had a specific business focus - agriculture.
It included lectures by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, a series of lectures at the New Zealand Embassy and visits to dairy factories and livestock centres (no on-farm with livestock visits though due to a recent outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease).
Delegate Tim McCready, who works at New Zealand Trade and Enterprise as a business development consultant working with natural health product and biotechnology companies, said the trip was a fantastic opportunity to understand doing business in an environment he was previously unfamiliar with.
“Japan will always play an important role in the global economy. The things I have learnt about the country and culture will change the way I think about, and conduct business with Japan forever,” he said.
Through the facts and figures presented to the group over 10 days of seminars and field trips, Mr McCready said there would always be a market for natural health products in Japan.
This is due to the nation’s population decline, with 40 per cent of the population expected to be aged over 60 by 2050.
There should be high demand for natural foods focused towards aging populations and people keeping healthy, he said.
He was also struck by the cultural differences. One is the role agricultural land plays in the lives of Japanese farmers.
The delegates were divided into specialised horticulture and dairy/livestock groups.
Mr McCready was part of the horticulture group which visited a lettuce grower. “I think that one of the things that really struck me was visiting the lettuce farmer.
“The farmer spoke to us about the money he makes from his lettuces before factoring in labour costs, and he really wasn’t making any profit.”
Mr McCready said he did it for culture and heritage and because his family had always grown lettuces.
“He works six months off the farm to make money for his family to live and to cover additional costs for his crop,” he said.
“Tradition comes before profit - I thought that was really enlightening.”
Like Mr McCready, Rakaia sharemilker Jessie Chan, who was also a delegate from New Zealand, said one of the main things she gained from the 11-day experience was that “building and maintaining relationships is key to doing business in Japan”.
She also had the opportunity to visit the Fonterra office, and saw how they put these relationships into practice.
Due to learning the importance Japanese consumers place on food safety (they trust their own produce but are sceptical of non-Japanese products), Ms Chan said as a Fonterra supplier, she found the trip helped her to understand the enormous value of an impeccable food safety record, how important it was for New Zealand to maintain the reputation of being safe food providers.
For Ms Chan, who also works for DairyNZ, the trip also highlighted the importance of progression planning, and the important role sharemilkers had in the New Zealand dairy industry.
“The aging population of dairy farmers in Japan and the difficulty with progression planning is also a huge concern to them.
“This reinforced for me the importance of progression in farming, and made me appreciate even more the strength of the sharemilking system we have in New Zealand.
“Japanese dairy farmers view New Zealand dairy farmers as being efficient producers of milk in a strong pasture based system,” Ms Chan said.
“Food safety, efficient pasture based production, trust and building relationships is what the New Zealand dairy industry is good at.”
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