TOKYO REPORT: Quantity coffee output to begin in Kagoshima

February 26, 2020

Tokyo--A project is well under way to produce premium coffee from beans grown on Tokunoshima, an island in Kagoshima Prefecture, on a commercial basis.

The project was launched in June 2017 by beverage maker Ajinomoto AGF Inc., major trading house Marubeni Corp. <8002>, the island town of Isen and the coffee producers association of Tokunoshima.

The alliance plans to gather one ton of beans and sell coffee made from this on a trial basis in fiscal 2022, before releasing the product in a limited quantity the following year. In fiscal 2024, it plans to produce 10 tons of coffee.

The number of coffee trees on Tokunoshima is planned to increase to 15,000 in fiscal 2022, from 200 in fiscal 2017.

"We are putting a plan in place to boost output," Ajinomoto AGF President Hideaki Shinada said.

Growing coffee beans on Tokunoshima involves overcoming various difficulties. For example, the island is prone to typhoons and farmers are faced with a shortage of successors. The group, therefore, conducted studies on typhoon-resistant breeds of coffee beans and encouraged farmers to join the coffee-growing business.

"People can grow coffee concurrently with other occupations," Seiichi Yoshitama, head of the producer association. "We want to develop (coffee production) as a new industry on the island."

Brazil and Vietnam produce more than half of the world's coffee beans, according to Marubeni and others. While major coffee companies can stably procure coffee beans from contract growers in such countries, the strict management of beans to maintain quality is physically difficult.

In contrast, thorough quality management including in the roasting process is possible on Tokunoshima, according to people involved in the project. The quality of coffee from the island is "good enough to be sold as a premium coffee," Shinada said.

A similar project kicked off in Okinawa Prefecture last year. Nestle Japan Ltd. and Okinawa SV, an athletic club headed by Naohiro Takahara, a professional soccer player who played for Japan's national squad, planted 240 coffee bean saplings at a farm in Nago, Okinawa, in April 2019. The city office and University of the Ryukyus cooperated in the work.

Athletes and officials of Okinawa SV will be involved in the harvesting of coffee beans due to begin as early as 2022. Nestle Japan and the club plan to plant some 10,000 more saplings.

"I hope to see coffee production grow to be a big industry in Okinawa," Takahara said.

The project envisions selling coffee as a local specialty and developing a plantation adjacent to a soccer pitch.

In 2018, Japan consumed some 470,000 tons of coffee, the fourth-highest figure in the world, due to increasing demand for high-quality coffee among Japanese consumers.

The cultivation of coffee beans in Japan is limited to certain areas such as Okinawa and most are consumed locally. Japan thus depends on imports for most of its coffee consumption.

But growing consumption may stimulate demand for homegrown coffee on a wider basis. There are hopes that an increase in cultivation will also contribute to the effective use of abandoned arable land and creation of local jobs. Jiji Press