During the visit to the Eastern Hokkaido area (Nakashibetu, Bekkai, Kushiro, Ashoro, Taiki, Shihoro, and Obihiro) in April, Virpi and Antti met many fascinating people. It was a very satisfying trip, gaining a lot of valuable information on the status of modern Japanese dairy industry, thoughts of the farmers, and opinions of dairy experts.

 First retrofit project in Japan

We would like to give our greatest gratitude to the participants of the seminars, the farmers’ generosity for the barn visits, companies and associations for sparing time, and to our friends who made the effort to accompany us and organize the seminar.

 Seminar about labor efficiency and retrofitting barn to robotic milking

Antti: ”It was our first trip to Japan, but I was surprised how similar the weather, farms, farmers, and also their challenges were in Hokkaido compared to Finland. I enjoyed a lot of the food (yakiniku and shabu-shabu were really memorable) and people were very nice and generous. Even though there are many similarities, some things need to be done differently in Japan, for example, farmstead plans, because expanding the barn is so tricky. ”

Tunnel ventilation in getting more and more popular in Japan

 Milking parlor 20/40 units

 Automatic feeding system in 4-robot barn

 As for everyone we unfortunately could not meet in person during this trip, especially our customers, we look forward to see you in the near future.