Sustainable agriculture that is environmentally friendly
In the year that my grandfather passed away, the orchard he left behind was producing apples as usual, and long-time customers in the area came to buy them, but when I actually started growing apples, I found that I had to spray more pesticides than I expected. The annual sales of apples were about 6 million yen, but the cost of pesticides required was about 1 million yen.
The management of an apple orchard is determined by how well it can sell bright red, well-shaped, and splendid apples as gifts at the end of the year. It accounted for a large part of my income. Apart from apples that have the same shape and color as if they were manufactured by a machine, many apples that are irregular in shape and have been eaten by insects can be harvested. However, the taste is the same as that of gift-giving and non-gifting. This raised a question in my mind.
"Do we need pesticides to make it look better?"
"Wouldn't it be more pleasing to use pesticides as little as possible and provide customers with healthy fruits?"
When we realized this, let's practice sustainable agriculture that does not rely on pesticides and is friendly to the natural environment, and make apple juice that children can drink with peace of mind! That's what I decided.
In 2022, after four years of organic standard cultivation, we obtained organic JAS certification for all apple plots on our own farm.