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金曜日に雑誌「現代農業」７月号が届きました。農業には関わっていないのですが、実家の家庭菜園の他に、父方の畑や森林があり有効活用したいと思い、読んでいます。

I received the latest edition of “Gendai-Nogyo”, Monthly Community Magazine for Farmers. I am not doing for agricultural business currently, but I have plans about how to get profits from agricultural land and forest which my father will inherit.

今月のテーマは「コロナで見えた農家力」。コロナで、学校給食、レストラン、野菜直売所への売り先がなくなった農産物を、どこに売っていたかを記事にしたものです。

Main theme for this month is about “how did farmers sell their products in COVID-19 ?”. Some farmers had sold ones to schools, restaurants, direct sales places before this pandemic. However, during pandemics, they couldn’t distribute ones into these sales channels, were forced to sell ones into other channels instead.

この雑誌は農家の視点で書かれていますが、都市在住の人たちから見れば、スーパーでは野菜が不足して、値段が上がっていたので、すごく違和感を感じているはずです。

Urban people including me must have different perspective from this magazine’s view, because agricultural product prices in grocery stores drastically increased by about 30 percent in my impression.

なぜこのようなことがおこるかというと、スーパーや八百屋は基本ＪＡや卸売市場から仕入れたものに対し、現代農業で取り上げられている農家は、売り先が違うからです。コロナで外食していた人が家で自炊するようになって、スーパーの野菜売り場に殺到したため、需要と供給のバランスが崩れて価格が上がったためです。

The reason of price gap above is by different sales channel, because grocery stores will basically purchase agricultural products from large distributors such as JA” Japan Agricultural Cooperatives”. During COVID-19 pandemic, most of people who had eaten out were forced to cook by themselves, who bought agricultural products sold in grocery stores. Demand increased for stable supply because the farmers in this magazine avoid supplying to large distributors taking large margin. Therefore, prices increased by imbalance between demand and supply.

やはり、販売するチャンネルを複数持つことが大切だと思います。投資の世界でも、「卵は一つのカゴに盛るな」という格言があります。消費者も、スーパーで売られる野菜よりもおいしいので、ＪＡ等既存卸売りを通さない売り方は、生産者と消費者とも双方のメリットがあるはずです。

In order for producers and consumers to be satisfied with, it is very important to increase independent sales channels of large distributor. Direct sales to consumers and package products among producers are examples to have solutions. Diversification will be protection also for future pademics, as there is proverb in stock investment “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”.