Yokohama

My day didn’t start until 11:30 am when I had lunch with my Program Administrator, Noko. I was looking forward to sleeping in after my long flight yesterday, but I woke up early and couldn’t go back to sleep. So, I got up and worked on some computer stuff. During lunch Noko and I talked a little about my upcoming schedule. She has some really cool stuff planned for me. After lunch we visited the Animal Products Inspection office at the Yokohama Port. They are responsible for inspecting all meat, bone, horn and antler, skin and hide, hair, feather, egg, raw milk, feces, ham, sausage, bacon and processed goods containing these products to make sure that they meet the import restrictions that are in place with the country that they are shipped from. This office is administered by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. After they inspect the products the Ministry of Health and Welfare does a sanitary inspection. Although they are not responsible for quarantining and inspecting live animals that enter the country, the head of the office, Koko Tanaka, did briefly discuss the process for bringing live animals into the country and gave us some literature regarding this process.

Next we went to Kamigumi Co., Ltd. This location is a five story chilled vegetable warehouse. We first went to the fourth and fifth floors to look at some produce that came from a company called Webster Fresh which Noko represents in Japan. They are based in Tasmania, Australia. We looked at some carrots and some onions that they had in storage. Below is a picture of the carrots and one of the barcode and traceability information, so they can track the pallet of carrots back to the producer if necessary. We spoke to Mr. H Fujimoto about the fruit and vegetable inspection process. He explained it well. The inspectors make sure that the produce doesn’t have any bugs or disease. If they find something wrong, then depending on the produce and what county it is from it will either be reshipped back to its original destination or it will be fumigated.

This evening we had dinner with Hiromi Nagano, who is an Eisenhower Fellowships Alum from Japan. We ate at a nice restaurant in Chinatown. I really enjoyed the dinner and the conversation. There is a chance that I will be able to visit Hiromi on the small island where she lives just south of Kyushu. I hope it works out because I would really enjoy spending some more time with her and learning about the agriculture in her area. Tomorrow morning Noko will pick me up and we will go to her weekend house near Mt. Fuji. I am really looking forward to it; however I may not have internet access again until Sunday night when I get back to Tokyo. I will post more then.