MAFF's Chugoku National Agricultural Experiment Station will hold an international workshop on conservation and utilization of land in less-favored areas in Matsue and Oda, Shimane, from September 19 through 23. The workshop will focus in particular on the roles of livestock and technology. Developing sustainable farming systems is a challenge worldwide, especially in less-favored and remote areas, which are often hilly and mountainous. In such areas, the conservation of land offering beautiful scenery and biodiversity should be achieved through balanced and harmonized farming activities.
Livestock plays an important role in such activities.
The workshop will examine the roles of livestock and key technologies necessary for managing land resources. To promote mutual understanding between European countries and Japan, it is also necessary to look at institutional supports and national consensus on agricultural policies to assure the viability of farm life in such areas. Matsue and Oda, located on the western tip of Japan's main island of Honshu and surrounded by the Chugoku mountain range, are renowned for their beautiful rural scenery. Successful bids were tendered for 16,100 tons of feed wheat and 169,078 tons of feed barley. The National Institute of Animal Industry and The Society for Techno-Innovation of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries have collaborated for the past year on research aimed at finding specific regions of the genes that determine the different breeds of swine.