Unzen City certified brand "Unzen Kurihara Negi" is a green onion with sweetness, aroma and texture grown at the foot of Mt. Unzen on the Shimabara Peninsula, Nagasaki Prefecture.
1448-39 Taira Bo, Kunimi-cho, Unzen City, Nagasaki Prefecture 859-1325 Tel / Fax. 0957-78-5350
Work to make food for life
When I was finally able to call myself a full-fledged green onion farmer, I came across a very delicious vegetable. I will never forget the words that the creator gave me.
"Farmers buy their own products and connect their lives, and customers eat them and save their lives. Let's take pride in this wonderful work that nurtures the food for life."
When I heard that, I decided to do my best.
"We are doing a great job of feeding our lives, so take pride in farming."
Always keep an eye on issues and continue to make improvements.
At the time of 2004, the farmland owned by my family had a total area of 110a, most of which was in the mountains, and the sunlight was bad, the winter temperature was low, and the drainage was not good. After that, we expanded the scale by increasing the agricultural land by introducing acquaintances and relatives, and in 2010 we introduced a "green onion digger" by utilizing a subsidy project, and now we are producing in an area exceeding 7 ha. I've started working on it. “Negi digging”, which was the most difficult task in the work, can cope with the rapid expansion of the planted area by introducing machines, and along with this, transportation can be increased from 2 light trucks to 5 light trucks, and even 2 ton vehicles 1 We have introduced a larger refrigerated storage and a tractor with a larger horsepower.
Make the most of what nature brings.
For soil preparation, we are particularly focusing on green manure and compost. Many sunflowers are planted around schools, nursery schools, and elderly housings, and a sign saying "Please get it" is put up to make the local people happy. When I see a local junior high school student putting sunflowers in a bicycle basket and going to school, I am very happy to say, "I wonder if my sunflowers are kept alive at school."
For compost, cow manure is used in summer and chicken manure is used in winter. For beef manure, we use ripe compost from a livestock farmer who has a good reputation in Shimabara, and for chicken manure, we try to circulate in the region in collaboration with local livestock farmers and use only chicken manure that has not been fed with genetically modified crops.
Maintain stable quality by managing it properly.
There are more than 40 fields, each of which is numbered and managed. Materials such as fertilizers and pesticides will be examined based on the efforts of the previous year, a cultivation management record book will be created, and the materials used will be recorded for each field. White onion is a crop that is strong against dryness to some extent, but very weak against water. The summer and autumn harvests are cultivated in fields with high altitude, good drainage, and a slight slope. In addition, soil gathering is performed after the first and second groove fertilization, which results in local fertilization to the root, that is, reduced fertilizer. Agricultural chemicals and chemical fertilizers have achieved less than half of conventional cultivation, and we are now working hard to achieve even less.
A way of life that nurtures "living things" and is nurtured by it.
We ship all year round, but the most difficult year-round cultivation of green onions is summer and autumn cultivation. Not to mention typhoons, but in recent years, heavy rains that are said to be "once every few decades" have fallen from July to September, and the highest temperature in the history of observation has been renewed. Nowadays, I think that the attitude of "facing living things" is needed again for agriculture.
Putting the utmost love and confidence in your products is the only reward for your teacher and everyone who has taken care of you. Now that consumer needs are changing from quantity to quality, we will strive to pursue safety and security as well as taste and appearance.