Japanese Gov't Promotes Use of Biomass from Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries

The Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries released its 2006 Environmental Report on its website on December 15, 2006. According to this report, the ministry is promoting environment-friendly agriculture, forestry management, etc., in order to realize sustainability in agriculture, forestry and fisheries. The ministry also considers the use of domestic biomass resources as a key for developing new agriculture, forestry and fishery businesses, and is making efforts to increase the production of biomass fuel.

The ministry also has a program for supporting municipalities that draw up a "Biomass Town Plan," as of the end of September 2006, 60 such plans have been drawn up. The ministry supports construction of related facilities, helping to build a system designed to recycle local biomass resources into industrial raw materials or products. In addition, to promote the use of bioplastics, the ministry is operating model projects to verify, diffuse, demonstrate and educate producers and users about bioplastic production technologies.

A comparison of biomass use rates between 2002 and 2005 shows an increase in the use of domestic livestock manure from 80 to 90 percent, due to the enforcement of the Livestock Manure Law, and an increase in the use of food waste from 10 to 20 percent, due to the enforcement of the Food Waste Recycling Law. The overall utilization of waste biomass increased from 68 to 72 percent in carbon equivalent during the same period.

The utilization of previously unsued biomass types, such as forestry residues left at logging sites and unused portions of farm crops, has not spread because its added value fails to cover the costs of collection and transport.



Posted: 2007/06/01 12:05:50 AM
Japanese version