THE JAPAN NEWS



 

An increasing number of premium fruits and other high-quality agricultural products developed in Japan are turning up in markets overseas, threatening Japanese producers.

Although the Plant Variety Protection and Seed Law has been amended to ban unauthorized exports of such agricultural varieties, their surreptitious cultivation cannot be stopped once they are taken abroad.

Given that, the government has strengthened support measures for Japanese producers, such as providing subsidies to get Japanese varieties registered in other countries.


■ Development took 14 years

In late July, shocking news hit producers of the Ruby Roman grape variety, a specialty of Ishikawa Prefecture. Describing the Ruby Roman as the world’s most expensive grape, a South Korean newspaper reported that the grapes of this variety grown by South Korean producers would hit the shelves at a department store in the country in August for the first time.

The Ishikawa prefectural government spent 14 years developing the Ruby Roman brand, which was first shipped in 2008. The variety has been grown only by permitted producers in the prefecture.

There are strict rules for shipping Ruby Romans, which stipulate that each grape should weigh more than 20 grams and have a sugar content of more than 18 degrees.

Ruby Romans have been exported to Taiwan, Hong Kong and other destinations. On July 16, for example, a Taiwan distributor won a ¥1.4 million bid for a bunch of Ruby Roman grapes at the season’s first auction for the fruit at the Kanazawa municipal central wholesale market.

“As we haven’t checked the actual [South Korean] product, we can’t determine whether it really is the Ruby Roman [variety],” an official of the prefectural government said. “The seeds and seedlings were supposed to be managed strictly.”


■ Japanese fruits grown in China, S. Korea

While high-end Japanese brand-name fruits are popular overseas, it is conspicuous that such premium fruits have been grown in South Korea and China, where the climate is similar to that of Japan.

In those two countries, Shine Muscat grapes have been cultivated and exported to destinations including Thailand and Hong Kong.

The National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, which developed the branded grape, confirmed in a field survey in July 2016 that Shine Muscat grapes were being grown in China. It is believed that their seeds and seedlings were taken to China via multiple routes from around 2007, when the Shine Muscat began to be marketed in Japan.

The central government did not assume the producers would actively export Shine Muscat grapes, so measures against unauthorized exports fell behind.

The South Korean government has cultivated grapes as a flagship export item, and the Shine Muscat is a main export product. The country exported 1,972 tons of grapes in 2020, exceeding Japan’s 1,712 tons, and Shine Muscat accounted for nearly 90% of South Korea’s total grape export.

The cultivation of Shine Muscat grapes is not illegal in South Korea, because the variety is not registered there.

“If the taste [of the South Korean product] improves, they would compete with grapes grown in Japan,” said an official of the Japan Agricultural Cooperative Harenokuni Okayama in Kurashiki.

According to a survey conducted by the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry last year, seeds and seedlings of 36 varieties with Japanese brand names, including the Beni Haruka sweet potato, were traded online in China and South Korea.


■ Seeds law revisions

With the central government taking this matter seriously, the revised Plant Variety Protection and Seed Law came into force in April.

Based on applications from local governments, research institutes and individual developers, unauthorized exports of seeds and saplings of registered varieties are banned.

About 3,000 varieties are currently subject to this ban. However, the Japanese law cannot suspend the cultivation of such varieties once their seeds and saplings are taken out of the country.

To fortify measures against unauthorized cultivations, the agriculture ministry provides subsidies to register such varieties outside Japan. The Nagano prefectural fruit tree research station, for example, received such subsidies to apply to register the Queen Rouge grape variety in China and South Korea.

Even in instances where the registration is completed overseas, some registered varieties have still been grown without permission. To respond to such cases, the government subsidizes two-thirds of the costs to seek injunctions and take other actions. However, if the violation of rights becomes widespread, it could require an enormous amount to mount such countermeasures.

The government aims to boost exports of agricultural, forestry, fishery and food products from ¥921.7 billion in 2020 to ¥5 trillion in 2030.
To protect high-quality Japanese products as intellectual property, the government has been urged to implement effective measures.