11/24/2022－11/25/2022　Wakayama Prefecture (Wakayama City, Arida City, Aridagawa Town, Tanabe City, Kamitonda Town)

Members of Wakayama satellite, Wakayama University, and Wakayama prefectural government organized a technical tour to jointly explore the potential of its regional resources and possible future collaboration with other research themes of the “Co-JUNKAN” Platform Research Center. The University of Tokyo research team participated in the tour and exchanged opinions with the various regional players in Wakayama.

Wakayama Prefecture is rich in natural resources. Forests cover more than three-quarters of the geographical area of the prefecture, and the rivers flow from the mountain to bring nutrients to the land. The research team visited various biomass resource utilization practices, including Wakayama Fruit Tree Experiment Station (WFTES), terraced mandarin orange fields, and biomass power plant in Aridagawa Town, Sowakajuen Co., Ltd. (cultivation, processing, and sales of mandarin oranges) in Arida City, Akizuno Garten (a green tourism facility) in Tanabe City, and biogas power plant in Kamitonda Town. WFTES specializes in citrus research, one of the key products of Wakayama Prefecture. The biomass power station in Aridagawa Town was launched in October 2022, and its primary energy source was 100% of Wakayama-sourced underused wood. Organizations involved in the operation of Akizuno Garten led the small hydropower project to revitalize the local economy using water from the mountain. Japanese plum (ume) is also a specialty of Wakayama Prefecture, and its pickles (umeboshi) generate seasoning waste. In Tanabe City, Nakata Foods Co., Ltd., in collaboration with Miyaso Chemical Co., Ltd., established a plant to purify the seasoning waste, and its gas was sourced to generate electricity.

One of the unique practices the research team recognized was the business operation run by Sowakajuen Co., Ltd. They made high-value-added products from “ugly” mandarin oranges, which tasted good but did not meet beauty standards for fruit and thereby had previously been wasted or a loss before they could reach consumers. The company bought such “ugly” mandarin oranges at a higher price than its market price so that the farmers would be motivated to continue their business while the farming population was going down year by year. Then, fresh fruit juice was made from such “ugly” mandarin oranges. Even leftovers, namely pomace and the skin of the mandarin oranges, would not be wasted. They were processed into high-value-added products, such as Chinese herbal medicine raw materials and cosmetics. Sowakajuen has been successfully growing its business and contributing to regional economic vitalization by developing high-value-added products and sales. Farmers were encouraged and proud to produce mandarin oranges as the company convinced them that the oranges would be purchased, which further created new jobs in the processing factory to produce high-value-added products. Centering farmers in the primary industry, the secondary (manufacturing), and the tertiary (service) industries are closely connected. Consequently, the empowerment of the farmers boosted the revitalization of other industries, and the regional economy as a whole was stimulated. The concept of “Co-JUNKAN” has already been realized there and been verified to be operational.

Throughout the tour, a collaboration was enhanced between the Wakayama satellite and the research team, and the possible areas of collaborative research were identified. Although there were so many good practices in Wakayama, the locals faced some issues and challenges in their business operations. The research team noted that some of these challenges would be resolved when collaborative research was conducted with the GX technology developed by Research Theme 5, and/or heat and power supply-demand structure studied by Research Theme 6.

Each business manager we met during the tour had a shared ambition to “pass on primary industries, such as agriculture and forestry, to the next generation as a safe and stable income source,” and Wakayama University, together with Wakayama prefectural government, supported the attempts. To materialize their efforts, the “Co-JUNKAN” Platform Research Center is committed to advancing collaboration with the Wakayama satellite.