Held an exchange of opinions with the University of the Ryukyus, Uruma City, and Okinawa City.

On Tuesday, May 9, eight members of the COI-NEXT team—including Project Leader Taira and Deputy Project Leader Tsukahara from the University of the Ryukyus’ “Hub for Realizing an Environmental and Tourism Island Through Food Transformation,” as well as representatives from Uruma City and Okinawa City—visited our university for a meeting to exchange views.

Representatives from Nagaoka City also participated from this hub. After the PL provided an introduction to each hub, the event became a forum for lively discussion among the hubs—all of which focus on primary industries—covering topics such as the relationships between academia and stakeholders in agriculture and livestock farming, as well as local residents, and the role of local governments as facilitators of these connections.

After the discussion session, we toured the three laboratories in charge of the research projects.

We will continue to move forward with our activities while exchanging ideas among our offices.

*A Hub for Realizing an “Environmental and Tourism Island” Through Food Transformation*

"To create a sustainable island for the environment and tourism by promoting a high level of collaboration among the food, livestock, and agricultural sectors to facilitate resource circulation." With this vision in mind, this facility aims to reduce food waste and promote the circular use of food resources by utilizing food scraps as livestock feed in their original form or composting them together with livestock waste to create fertilizer for crops. Furthermore, for food scraps that are difficult to compost, the facility converts them into biogas to recover energy, and the remaining residue is returned to farmland as liquid fertilizer, with the goal of achieving zero-waste agriculture.