キーワード：食糧戦略、食糧科学、食糧安全保障

http://www.agbi.tsukuba.ac.jp/~seiken/foodsecurity/index.html

　我が国の自給率は現在40％と、先進国の中では最低の水準です。自給力の向上と将来の安定した食糧供給には、現在の農業生産量の維持が不可欠となります。しかし、農業従事者の平均年齢は既に65歳を超えています。少子高齢化が進む日本の農業生産力と食糧事情はどうなるのでしょう。農業生産量を持続させるにはどんな技術開発が有効なのでしょうか。生命の根幹に関わる食糧の問題を、 数10年先を見据えて研究しているグループがこのリサーチユニットです。

高齢化の進む日本で、食糧をいかに持続的に確保するか

Key words: Food strategy, food science, food security

The current food self-sufficiency rate of Japan is 40%, the lowest of all developed countries. Current agricultural production should be maintained to improve the current self-sufficiency rate and ensure sustainable food supply in the future. However, the average age of farmers is already over 65 years. What will happen to agricultural productivity and food supply in Japan with its declining birth rate and an aging population? What technological development will be effective for maintaining agricultural productivity? Our unit investigates future food problems in the coming 10 years, which are fundamental to our lives.

How should food supply be maintained in Japan with an aging population?

In our unit, social scientists predict a future social structure to consider what is needed to maintain food security. Natural scientists are engaged in research and development to technologically realize the structure. For example, we focus on “easy agriculture” to reduce the burden of labor in consideration of the agricultural situation in Japan where 40% of the population will be over 65 years old in 2050. Figure 1 shows tomatoes that bear fruits after flowering without manual pollination. Cultivating vegetables in greenhouses all year round may pose difficulties when relying on natural pollination in some seasons and prolonged working hours in greenhouses in hot weather. Agricultural processes before harvesting may be reduced to planting and disease control.

Figure 1: Tomatoes that bear fruits throughout the year (arrow: a fruit growing without pollination)

Increase the functionality and value of vegetables and activate horticulture production    

Vegetables are essential components of healthy diets. However, storing vegetables is difficult. Technology to increase storage stability has attracted attention. Figure 2 shows tomatoes that do not go rotten for 60 days after ripening. If this technology can be applied to other vegetables, free trade should facilitate the export of such vegetables to other countries. In addition, we make efforts to increase the desirability of vegetable brands. The tomato cultivar the Fruit Gold GABA-rich (Figure 3) has abundant levels of an amino acid called GABA. GABA has antihypertensive effects. We aim to grow highly functional vegetables as healthy foods.
Thus, a future agricultural base will be constructed through the enhanced production of horticultural crops (vegetables) and development of production technologies (Figure 4).

Figure 2: Tomatoes that do not go rotten even after 60 days (upper: ordinary tomatoes, lower: tomatoes with increased storage stability)

Figure 3: GABA-rich functional tomatoes

Figure 4: Construction of agricultural base