Progress of sustainable agriculture
Conservation of natural capital
Human life and endeavor are supported by natural bounties (ecosystem service) which provided by natural capital*, including food, water, and raw materials. Business activities of the Calbee Group are involved deeply in agriculture, under our corporate philosophy of “harnessing nature’s gifts.” We want to make agriculture sustainable and eco-friendly by understanding and improving processes that rely on and impact natural capital.
* Natural capital: stock formed by nature, including forest, soil, water, air, and biological resources.
Excerpt from the Annual Report on the Environment, Sound Material-Cycle Society and Biodiversity in Japan 2023, Ministry of the Environment.
Main initiatives
Appropriate fertilization based on soil analysis
Nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potassium are the 3 primary nutrients that are necessary for plants to grow. They are – for example – essential fertilizers for increasing potato yield.
Let us also point out that every field has its own unique soil properties and conditions. So, at the Calbee Group, we perform soil analyses on fields, based on which we propose the appropriate fertilizer.
If soil analyses show that sufficient phosphoric acid is accumulated in the soil, we know that environment is ready to grow plants, so we reduce the amount of fertilizer there and add more to fields where the soil is lacking phosphoric acid. In this way, we are working with producers to appropriately fertilize fields based on soil analyses.
Moreover, since Japan is dependent on imports of phosphate rock from abroad, we use limited resources carefully and strive to reduce the environmental load on soil in order to preserve natural capital, and seek to achieve sustainable agriculture.
Regarding the reduction of phosphate fertilizer, we are promoting various initiatives, including a preservation test of reduced phosphate fertilizer in fields conducted by the Hokuren Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives, producers, and Calbee Potato, based on the results of joint research with Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine.
Fertilizers of low phosphoric acid content (BBS050, etc.) were launched by Hokuren in 2023.