Growing tropical fruits in the snow looks like an impossible task, but the adventure of some entrepreneurs in the Japanese island of Hokkaido has proved to be a success. The coveted mangoes cultivated in this area, with a designation of origin, are sold for up to 50,000 yen (about 388 Euro).
East of the island, in Tokachi, the agricultural heart of Hokkaido, a small, ramshackle 750 square metre greenhouse, surrounded by snow, has 50 mango trees producing some 2,300 pieces per year in December since 2014.
The owner of this plantation, Hiroyuki Nakagawa, explains that growing mangoes in the snow has been "a dream" in which he started working five years ago, after meeting a producer in the Miyazaki prefecture (south), who was devoted to the business and offered him advice on how to launch the operation.
The freezing temperatures and heavy snowfall during Hokkaido's long winter was not a deterrent in his efforts to start a business that seemed unworkable: cultivating one of the tropical fruits par excellence in extreme conditions and selling the product at Christmas, when prices reach their highest point.
To this end, Nakagawa invested his savings and a subsidy from the Japanese authorities of 52 million yen (about 403,500 Euro) to build a greenhouse; a warm oasis at 31.5 degrees Celsius surrounded by snow.
"We received a great response from consumers. After each harvest, our stocks are sold out; we have no surplus. In fact, we do not produce enough mangoes," said the entrepreneur, who is studying expanding its cultivation facilities.
"Demand exceeds supply," said Nakagawa, who after the successful sale of mangoes is considering growing also other fruits, like pineapples or peaches, and turn this area of Hokkaido into a "tropical fruit production centre in Japan."
The fruits sold under the brand "Sun in the snow" reach their peak in popularity around Christmas, when Japanese executives enjoy exclusive gifts as a sign of courtesy.
The technology to grow fruit in this snowy area is environmentally-friendly, since 80 percent of the energy used to heat the greenhouse, where the temperature difference with the outside can reach 44 degrees Celsius, comes from clean sources.
The mangoes grown in Hokkaido have slightly higher sugar levels than those produced in other regions due to the island's particular climate, with long hours of sun exposure and a wide gap between the minimum and maximum temperature.
Source: EFE