Webinar: Cultivating fertile futures in Japan

Please join AgriTechNZ and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) to explore new agritech opportunities in the world’s third biggest economy. Discover the Japanese market and understand the growing appetite for local agritech companies.

We will discuss the $2.6 billion agritech market, including dairy farming, fruit and vegetables, IoT applications, drones and robotics. Plus, learn more about Japanese initiatives encouraging agritech adoption. You will also be introduced to the Virtual Business Trip platform launching during this year’s Fieldays.

AgriTechNZ’s Brendan O’Connell will facilitate a panel of speakers exploring the rising demand for agritech in Japan. Japanese business experts and officials will join the discussion including ANZCO Food’s Makoto Kinjo , Yamaha’s Jim Aota and Deloitte’s Fayaz Budhwani. They will be joined by Dr Takuya Sato from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan (MAFF) and NZTE’s Head of Business Development Yoshifumi Imamura.

Speakers:

Mr. Fayaz Budhwani

Fayaz is a Manager within the Business Development group at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. He provides consulting services to enable organizations’ growth and transformation, serving clients across North America & Asia Pacific. He has experience supporting Japanese firms spanning various industries including Agriculture, Financial Services & Retail; with a focus on technological innovation to inform on where-to-play & how-to-win choices that underpin clients’ business strategies. Fayaz is actively engaged in formulating market entry strategies to expand NZ Inc’s AgriTech presence in Japan and South Korea; framing key agri-sector dynamics & distilling actionable insights to identify competitive opportunity areas.

Mr. Jim Aota

Jim joined Yamaha Motor Co. in 2017, where he was responsible for new business development across the company. Then, he moved to Corporate Planning Department, and he was responsible for developing and managing the execution of the company’s long-term vision and mid-term business plan. In May last year, he was appointed CEO of Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley, a company that decided to invest in Robotics Plus – one of the global leading Ag-Tech companies. Prior to joining Yamaha Motor, Jim worked for more than a decade in Mitsui & Co.Ltd., Japanese Trading Firm in Detroit, New York, London, and Tokyo. He is also a 2010 graduate of the Harvard Business School Leadership Development Program (PLD). Yamaha Motor was originally founded as a “new business” by a musical instrument manufacturer (Yamaha Corporation) with a strong desire to create a completely different product, the motorbike back in 1955. Let’s hear from Jim about the strategy of such a company.

Mr. Makoto Kinjo

Makoto has been involved in the New Zealand meat industry for the last 20 years as part of ANZCO, not only from a sales perspective in Japan, but also from a producer’s perspective of New Zealand’s agricultural base, one of the most competitive in the world. Makoto has retired as President of ANZCO Japan and is now managing the company as Director. His focus is now on his own company, Ambrosia, managing the WAKANUI restaurant and developing new food products using NZ’s agricultural base. He says: “I think Agritech’s work is very important for Japanese agriculture and will make an important contribution to the food and farming partnership between Japan and NZ. There is a lot of technology that can be applied not only to sheep, but to livestock and dairy farming in general, and the possibilities are huge when you include sustainability, animal welfare and other areas where Japan lags.

Dr. Takuya Sato

Takuya is a researcher at Business-Academia Cooperation Office at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan (MAFF). His role at MAFF is to promote government-led open innovation program named “Field for Knowledge, Integration and Innovation (FKII), which has over 3,700 members and 160 research projects. FKII is promoting not only Smart agriculture (e.g. robotics, drones), Start-up agritech businesses but also International collaboration. Takuya is currently working with several Embassy in Tokyo including NZ Embassy, and exchanging ideas for possible international collaboration with these countries. Takuya’s messages is that scientific inputs from New Zealand to Japan will be significantly important to improve the technologies developed under FKII for Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries and Food industries

Mr. Yoshifumi Imamura

Yoshifumi is a Head of Business Development – Agritech with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE). Based in Tokyo, Japan, he manages and facilitates New Zealand businesses’ success in market, in line with NZTE’s purpose of growing companies internationally bigger, better, and faster, for the benefit of New Zealand. Highly passionate about agritech – his father was a farmer – Yoshifumi is keen to help New Zealand agritech companies harness the ripe market in Japan. His customer portfolio includes specialized manufacturing and technology companies. Prior to joining NZTE in 2014, Yoshifumi served as Senior Sales Manager in Tokyo for Swedish firm Ericsson, Country Marketing Manager of Singtel Japan, and Global Account Director for Singtel in Singapore. Before that, he worked for Japanese conglomerate, Itochu Corporation.

 

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