By Kaori Kaneko and Mariko Katsumura
TOKYO (Reuters) -Japanese farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi, a top contender to become the next premier, downplayed criticism on Friday over his ministry’s handling of a licensing deal for a prized grape variety that sparked an official protest from producers.
At a press conference the day before, the governor of Yamanashi prefecture, a major producer of Shine Muscat grapes, criticised the ministry for entering discussions with New Zealand about growing the prized fruit without the prior knowledge or input of producers.
Governor Kotaro Nagasaki, along with a representative of the local agricultural cooperative, met with Koizumi to lodge the complaint and urge steps to expand the market for exports, rather than offering a cultivation licence for production abroad.
Koizumi, who faces a key vote next week within the Liberal Democratic Party to replace Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba as its leader, said his ministry did not intend to grant a cultivation licence without consulting producers.
“Governor Nagasaki has requested that we increase the number of countries to which Japan can export Shine Muscat grapes, and I completely agree,” he said.
“We would not proceed with licensing without the understanding of producing regions and governors.”
He noted that granting licenses was a basic policy approach approved by the cabinet earlier this year for certain products.
The Shine Muscat variety was developed over a period of about 30 years, starting in the late 1980s, by national agricultural bodies and has been marked as a promising export product.
Its seedlings, however, were initially not protected outside Japan and made their way to China and South Korea, which are exporting the product to Southeast Asia. Japan passed legislation in 2021 to restrict overseas sale of the seedlings.
($1 = 149.6800 yen)
(Reporting by Kaori Kaneko, Mariko Katsumura and Tamiyuki KiharaWriting by Chang-Ran Kim; Editing by Saad Sayeed)
