OPINION | B7

| SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2023 | THE STRAITS TIMES |chime lanterns. Some models areequipped with sound sensors thatallow lanterns to be switched on
and off simply by clapping. It has
also created a lightstick version
for fans of the local basketball
team.
“My dream is to turn Mito into
a city of lanterns, well known inJapan and around the world,” Mr
Suzuki says.

A fireworks
display byNomura Hanabi
Kougyou at a
festival inOctober. Thecompany,
founded in 1875,
has won plentyof kudos,
including thePrime Minister’sAward 21 times.
But its president,
Mr Yoichi
Nomura, said
that it is “awfullydifficult tocreate somethingnew”. PHOTO:

UNEARTHING NEW MARKETSCOURTESY OFNOMURA HANABIKOUGYOU

LetterFromIbaraki

Japan’s Ibaraki seeks new frontiers
as it tries to shake off ‘dull’ image

From caviar tochochin lanterns,
entrepreneurs inthe prefecture areembracing risk.

Walter Sim
Japan Correspondent
IBARAKI (Japan) – Caviar is notamong the delicacies one would
associate with Japanese cuisine,
but Mr Masao Hakuta wants tochange minds.
The 65-year-old, who had his
first taste of caviar only four years
ago, now runs a business raising
sturgeon and producing caviar(cured sturgeon roe) in his native
Ibaraki prefecture, north-east ofTokyo.
“I want to put my hometown on
the world map with a speciality
product,” says Mr Hakuta of theTsukuba Sturgeon Company.
Caviar, he adds, has a gentle andsubtle flavour that is a good fit inJapanese cuisine where ikura(salmon roe) is commonly eaten.
He is among several
entrepreneurs I met on a recent
trip to the prefecture of 2.8
million people that ranks 11th outof 47 in population size. Theirappetite for risk seems to haverubbed off from its ebullient
governor.
Mr Kazuhiko Oigawa, 59, was apolitical greenhorn in 2017 whenhe brazenly took on theincumbent, a veteran with 24
years in office – and won.
“Life without risk is dull. We
need to boldly take on new
challenges with no fear of failure,”
he says.
Yet “dullness” is a dubious
attribute that Ibaraki is struggling
to shake off. The prefecture often
comes in dead last, including in
2023, in an annual attractivenesspoll by private consultancy Brand
Research Institute that ranks
Japan’s 47 prefectures.
Perceptions are that Ibaraki’s
status as a science and industrial
hub does not lend itself to an
exciting image. It is also
overshadowed by otherprefectures in the Greater Tokyo
region, and has particularly low
recognition among respondents
in western Japan.

Brand Research Institute’s
president Akio Tanaka suggeststhat Ibaraki’s tourist attractions
are “not being fully publicised”.
While top-ranked Hokkaido isfar more famous for its
breathtaking landscapes andpowder snow, Ibaraki’scellar-dweller ranking belies its
strong claims to fame in terms ofnatural beauty and culturaltreasures.
Its Kairakuen is one of Japan’s
three finest landscape gardens,
while the Hitachi Seaside Park isa top tourist attraction where
nemophila blooms turn hilly
meadows into beautiful carpets ofblue in spring, and kochia turns
them into a sea of magnificent
red in autumn.
Ibaraki is also home to theUshiku Daibutsu – among theworld’s tallest Buddha statues at120m – while the torii gate of
Oarai Isosaki Shrine, founded in856, stands dramatically on an
outcropping of rocks in thePacific Ocean.
Instead of paying too muchattention to the rankings,
however, Mr Oigawa says Ibaraki
must chart its own path.
Noting that governance in Japan
has historically been “onautopilot”, he says modern-day
success will favour only the brave.
“We are in an unpredictable era
where precedent-based thinking
is no longer feasible.”
Mr Oigawa wants Ibaraki to do
things differently whileleveraging its strengths, whether
in hard industrial activity or thesofter cultural aspects, with thehelp of its intrepid scientists,
farmers and entrepreneurs.
Ibaraki is home to the Japan
Aerospace Exploration Agency
and boasts the largest area of new
factory land over the last 10 years.
It is also the country’s largest
producer of eggs and sweet
potato, and was the birthplace of
natto, a smelly and gooey
fermented soya bean dish that isa staple for the Japanese and an
acquired taste for foreigners.
Ibaraki now boasts Japan’s
second-largest fisheries output,
third-largest agricultural output
and seventh-largest
manufacturing output.
Food exports overseas have also
surged a whopping tenfold since
Mr Oigawa came to office: rice,
bok choy, sweet potato, Hitachi
beef and Hitachino craft beer areamong items that can be found inSingapore.
TENSION AND RELAXATION

Ibaraki prospered during the Edo
period (1603 to 1867) as home of
the Mito domain of the Tokugawa

shogunate. Its feudal lords
believed in the ideology oficchou-isshi, which means tension
and relaxation, and this spirit
remains steeped in Ibaraki’s core
today.
Alongside strong manufacturing
credentials lies rich culture. Imeet Mr Yoichi Nomura, 73, who
is regarded as one of the best
pyrotechnicians in Japan.
He is the fourth-generationpresident of the eponymous
Nomura Hanabi Kougyou,
founded in 1875. It has won plentyof kudos, including the Prime
Minister’s Award 21 times.
“Each fireworks display is fortens of thousands of people at atime. There is nothing similar inscale. And everyone responds
differently: Some will be touched
to tears, others will smile,” hesays, when I ask what fireworks
mean to him.
“Fireworks can heal the heartsof even the meanest people, andclear the minds of thosestruggling to find answers.”
But with the credentials comes
added pressure to stay on top of
his game. He confesses that it is“awfully difficult to create
something new”.
That is also the case at Suzuki
Mohei Shoten, a maker of chochin
paper lanterns founded in 1865.
These lanterns – collapsible andmade of water-resistant bamboo
and paper – traditionally featureduring festivals or as shop
displays.
Ibaraki’s capital Mito ishistorically one of three major
production centres of theselanterns, alongside Gifu and Yamein Fukuoka. While there were 30
lantern makers in Mito at its
peak, there are just three today.
“To be brutally honest, I had
zero interest in the company,”laughs Mr Kota Suzuki, 41, aformer video director who is set
to succeed his father Ryutaro as
the eighth-generation presidentof the firm.
He returned in 2014 with a
mission to innovate and spreadthe appeal of the handcrafted
lanterns through Japan andworldwide. Admitting to feelingan existential crisis, he says hefelt responsible to bring backvibrancy to the once-lively streetsof his childhood days.
Mito’s population has
marginally increased from
253,744 in 1985 to 268,231 in 2023
– bucking the national trend ofshrinking cities – but Mr Suzuki
says the city centre feels emptierwith fewer youth and fewer
places to gather.
The company is preserving
tradition while innovating, toying
with new products such as wind

Mr Masao Hakuta runs a business raising sturgeon and producing caviar inIbaraki. PHOTO: COURTESY OF TSUKUBA STURGEON COMPANY

Mr Kota Suzuki is set to succeed his father as the eighth-generation president ofchochin paper lantern-maker Suzuki Mohei Shoten. ST PHOTO: WALTER SIM

Ibaraki prefecture
AreaPopulation(24th out of 47 prefectures)(11th out of 47)

Sea of Japan(East Sea)

Hitachi

6,097 sq km

SOUTH
KOREA

JAPAN

2.84 million

Mito
Ibaraki

TsukubaNamegata

Tokyo

Agricultural production value
as of 2021

426.3 billion yen*(third out of 47)*S$3.8 billion

Paciﬁc
Ocean

Volume of fish caught
as of 2020

299,686 tonnes(second out of 47)

Source: IBARAKI PREFECTURAL GOVERNMENT STRAITS TIMES GRAPHICS

Agriculture and fisheries havebeen key industries for Ibaraki,
though they are not immune to
the national challenge of anageing population and theworldwide phenomenon of global
warming.
Exporting overseas, farmers say,is one way to secure larger profits,
while turning to technology canalso boost productivity. These,ultimately, aim to change
perceptions of farming as adifficult and dirty job.
IKN Egg Farms uses a fully
automated production line at its
Omitama Farm in Ibaraki
prefecture to pack up to 1.1 million
eggs a day. Its president Taku
Saito, 54, whose grandfather
founded the firm in 1925, saysthat stringent inspection controls
are conducted on the basis thatits eggs will be eaten raw, as iscommon in Japanese cuisine.
“If people get food poisoning,we will be destroyed,” he says.
“Because of this, we are doing
everything in-house; even thefeed is made using our own
original recipe. We check, andcheck, and check, for foreign
substances including salmonella.”
The firm began exports to Hong
Kong in 2021, where Mr Saito seesa surge in demand for eating raw
eggs on rice. Its export valuesoared from 25 million yen(S$225,000) then, to a forecast
453 million yen in 2023.
Now, IKN raises over two
million chickens across six farms,and packs its eggs using a fully
automated process such that theeggs are not directly handled byhumans at any point in themanufacturing line.
Elsewhere, the Namegata
branch of Japan Agricultural
Cooperative oversees 60 crops.
Among them is the sweet potato,
which has been awarded
geographical indicator status tocertify its quality as having beengrown in the region.
But Mr Yuji Kuriyama of JANamegata says global warming
has made output uncertain, withthe cooperative now trying tocultivate varieties that are moreresistant to climate change.
Ibaraki’s fisheries industry has
also been hurt by global warming,with catch severely falling by asmuch as 90 per cent within five
years along the Pacific coast andin Lake Kasumigaura, Japan’s
second-largest lake at 220 sq km.
In 2022, Ibaraki began totest-farm 35,000 mackerel in two
cages at the Nakaminato Port.
Each cage comes equipped withautomated feeding devices andunderwater cameras that can bemonitored remotely.
The prefecture is working withUmitron, a start-up based inSingapore and Japan, for thedemonstration farm. Productmanager Kaitaro Nishida, 30,
whose name serendipitously
contains the character for sea,tells me: “Consumers want thecheapest groceries, but do notrealise how food security is amajor worry.”
Mr Hisao Seya, director ofaqua-farming projects at theIbaraki Prefectural Government’s
fisheries promotion division, adds
that there have been doubts
among fishermen, who “takegreat pride in catching fish out atsea”. But he says: “We want tosow the seeds that this is apossible solution.”Indeed, fish farming has been
embraced by forward-looking
Ibaraki natives.
Mr Hakuta, the caviar maker, isrearing 6,000 sturgeons – andcounting – in controlledenvironments with water fed
from the nearby Mount Tsukuba.
The former architect is turning
defunct facilities – such as astone mill and the swimming poolof a shuttered school – into
aquaculture farms for sturgeons,
which are known in China as the“emperor’s fish” and served as
luxury meat in the West. But a lotof risk is involved: It takes at least
eight years of investment with noreturn, and plenty of trial anderror, before female sturgeons
bear their first eggs. Mr Hakuta
hopes he has now struck success,given that his caviar is being usedin Japanese restaurants.
“We believe that one day, caviar
will become part of our culture,”
he says. “It will also be a goodidea to export overseas and makepeople wonder: ‘Where isIbaraki?’”waltsim@sph.com.sg