Ambassador Miyashita visits Hachimantai City, Japan (September 14-15, 2017)
2017/10/5
Ambassador Miyashita visited Hachimantai City in Iwate Prefecture in Japan on September 14. He exchanged views with Mayor Tamura on achievement made in the cultivation experiment of Japanese flower Rindo or Japanese gentian, and how to promote cooperation between the citizens in Rwanda and Hachimantai City toward the forthcoming Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Ambassador Miyashita also gave a lecture to approximately one hundred city officials on the current situation in Rwanda.
The next day, Ambassador Miyashita visited “Flower Research and Development Center” and met farmers cultivating Japanese gentian in Hachimantai City. He also paid a courtesy call on Governor Tasso of Iwate Prefecture and updated the situation of the Japanese gentian cultivation project of Hachimantain City in Rwanda, and requested for further support from the Iwate Prefecture.
Rindo or Japanese gentian, a native flower of Japan, gains popularity not only in Japan but also in other countries. Hachimantai City boasts of its largest volume of Japanese gentian production in Japan, approximately one third of the total domestic production of 89 million flowers. At present, Hachimantai City is promoting a plan to export Japanese gentian cultivated in Rwanda to Europe in order to increase export to Europe. The project was launched in November 2014 by a team of Hachimantai City, Mizuho Cooperation, and Iwate University and has been implemented successfully. The first export to Europe is expected to be in May, 2018.
In Japan, Japanese gentian is cultivated in rice fields which are not in use temporarily mostly in Tohoku Region which is northern part of Japan. Rwanda also has rice fields and people cultivate rice. In this project, it was concluded that suburb of Kigali was the most suitable for cultivating Japanese gentian in Rwanda after the experiment conducted in several places in the country. In Rwamagana, which is close to this gentian project site, the Japanese grant-aid project for improving irrigation system is being implemented by JICA and we might see in the near future cultivation of Japanese gentian works hand in hand with the Japanese aid project.