“The world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.” Helen Keller wrote it on her book published in 1902. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Japanese agriculture got damaged seriously. If Keller is trueーwhen are Japanese farmers full of overcoming?
This Is The Hardest Ever According to Tokyo Meat Market Co., the price of meat fell down by 700 yen from April 2019 (see Figure 1). That was because of the decrease of going-outs and of inbound tourists. “This is the hardest ever,” said Kazunori Sato, a livestock farmer in Tochigi Prefecture. If this situation continues, some farmers might go out of business.
Figure 1. Monthly Average Price of Beef per Kilogram (yen)
Notes: The figures of A3 to A5 show the ranking of meat quality.
Source: Tokyo Meat Market Co., Ltd.
Flowers Don’t Tell, They Show
Ryohin-Keikaku had sold flowers grown up in Chiba. Roses, sunflowers, eucalypti and dianthes, and other party flowers used to be sold and exported well. However, farmers couldn’t enjoy it because of the cruel virus.
Beautiful flowers surely have a power to make people smile and this is why Ryohin-Keikaku has decided to buy those flowers and sell at their retail chain of Muji. “We could purchase from farmers directly and sell there. It actually took only 3 weeks to do so,” said Asako Shimazaki, a chairman of its food sector. Furthermore, Muji also added the flower information of how to arrange and keep them lively.
Not Only Flowers. . . On the other hand, Café & Meal Muji served some soft drinks. Japanese students, especially at the elementary and junior high schools, always drink a cup of milk at school lunch. But now many schools are closed and that means there are much extra milk. In addition, there are many strawberries which are not picked up because of the decrease of tourists. the café decided to provide milk with strawberries by making use of them.
Suffering and Overcoming During this hard time, coronavirus reminds us how happy our former life used to be. We used to go outside and hang out with my friends freely but don’t we forget the appreciation for such days? This suffering maybe a message to us. “This is also the time full of overcoming.” as Helen said. Reference https://ryohin-keikaku.jp/news/2020_0416.html https://ssl.tmmc.co.jp/downloads/?f=report_u.pdf https://xtrend.nikkei.com/atcl/contents/watch/00013/00981/
Comments