We started out a very long day of activities here at the IFAJ Congress with a sort of a press conference at the “Imagine” studio of the Japan Broadcasting System, NHK. You can see the title on the glass wall of the studio here with the activities going on inside. I don’t have the information on what the building is but I’m sure someone can supply it. Apparently they had to acquire the rights to the name from Yoko Ono. The words to John Lennon’s song are also on the wall and there’s a plaque inside explaining this.
Anyway, we heard from several people including the director of agricultural policy for the Japanese Agricultural Cooperative system.
He included a very well done video explaining how and why the system came into being and how it has evolved over the years. There are about 9.9 million cooperative members with almost half of them being classified as associate members.
You can listen to his remarks here: ifaj-07-cooperatives.mp3
IFAJ Congress 2007 Photo Album
AgWired coverage of IFAJ 2007 is sponsored by: 
Have I mentioned sake yet? This is sake country and at one of our receptions in Tokyo I think we had at least 13 companies exhibiting with sake tasting galore.
Here on a rooftop overlooking the research facility is where we said auf Wiedersehen to 
Before those treated seeds can be planted in a farmer’s field, 
“We test all different seeds in terms of germination,” he says. “The germination is very important to see if there is any damage in terms of germination on the roots or any delays.” 
Our final stop at the 
Like everything else in BASF product development, quite a bit of work goes into creating treated seeds. “We are involved from the early development stage, from the research phase,” he said.
Okay, so if Dr. Speakman was excited about fungi, Dr. Christoph Kunast is simply buggy about insects. 
This is a guy who really loves fungi. 
“The mycologists estimate there are about 1.6 million fungal species,” says Speakman. “To date we have identified about 85,000 of these. There are about 8,000 plant pathogenic fungi in the world.” And can you guess what plant is the most impacted by fungi? It is actually grass – some 160 fungi can create problems for turfgrass and golf courses.
Dr. Speakman also demonstrated BASF’s new Stargate method of applying test compounds to plants. “It enables us to reduce the amount of compound being sprayed,” Speakman said. It also runs by computer to reduce human exposure to unknown compounds. I shot a little video of that which is being edited and we should be able to post here before too long.
Since our sponsor for coverage of this year’s IFAJ Congress is Pioneer I couldn’t help but post a picture of Jurii Mikhailov, Univest Media, Ukraine. Jurii was sporting his Pioneer t-shirt during our first full day of activities.
A main sponsor for the IFAJ Congress here in Japan is