On a crisp April morning, Shigeo Maeda stopped by Masuya Bakery to buy breakfast in Obihiro in northern Japan’s Tokachi district. As he picked up bread and pastries, he chatted with head baker Shinji Amagata. They know each other well: Shigeo does not only buy his bread from Shinji, he also sells him flour made from the wheat grown on his farm.
“20% of wheat in Japan is produced in Tokachi district. It was strange that in such a big wheat producing area nobody was using it,” said Shinji, remembering when his father started buying local 25 years ago.
This was an ideal outlet for Shigeo, who has been looking for ways to sell outside the main Japan Agricultural (JA) Corporation co-op and increase added value on his farm. Together, they have been looking for the best varieties to grow milling wheat in the region’s wet and cold climate.
Shigeo showed a nearby field where he grows Yumechikara wheat, which translates as “the power of dreams”. The variety achieves 14.5% protein, which is much higher than the varieties usually grown in Japan for the noodle market.
“It was sown on 23 September last and was in hibernation over the winter,” Shigeo said. Temperatures can drop to -20°C around here and a thick blanket of snow still covered some of the fields around in early April, but not this one. Shigeo explained that the local practice is to spread fertiliser coated with coal or soot over the snow on winter crops – the black colour absorbs heat from sunshine and melts the snow quicker.
Since he started using local flour, Shinji said that his bakery’s sales have increased by 30%. The business has opened new shops in the region and one in Tokyo, where many former residents of Tokachi live and are happy to support the farmers back home.
Wheat occupies 80ha of Shigeo’s 120ha farm. He does his own drying and sorting with on-farm equipment and has commercial agreements with flour merchants to manage orders and milling. Bakers order flour coming specifically from his farm and each bag is traceable.
A 25kg bag of flour sells for €58, or €2,320/t. Accounting for a 30% weight loss and milling costs through the process, Shigeo still gets more than double the market price of €415/t for milling wheat. The grain that doesn’t make the grade is sold as feed for €125/t.
Four years ago, Shigeo decided to take this approach one step further. “We have four months in the winter when we can’t work in the fields,” he said. So he decided to grow maize and process it as microwave popcorn – the first time this product was made in Japan. He invested in a bagging line and came up with clever processing options, drying the maize by mixing it with junk wheat, which naturally absorbs moisture.
”The first crop of popcorn failed because it froze just before harvest,” Shigeo remembers. He travelled to the US to visit a South Dakota farmer who was growing maize in a similar cold climate. Then he discovered Samco’s Irish-made biodegradeable plastic sheeting and now uses to protect his crop from the heat deficit in May and June. Last year, he visited Ireland to take part in the international Nuffield conference.
With his wife Akiko managing accounts and sales, Shigeo now employs three full-time staff and five part-timers. The popcorn plant runs two to three times a week and they have sold 130,000 individual bags since starting production last May. As the business develops, he is confident that it will keep all staff busy all year round in the near future.
