TS’s agriculture started in the end of 2008, after the strong crisis that affected many countries, especially Japan and the United States of America.
Many companies went bankrupt, leaving thousands of workers unemployed, not only Japanese but also many Brazilians.
TS’s agriculture was a way of surviving not only for Brazilians, but also for the company itself. A co-operative was created by TS and the many workers who lost their jobs in that period.
In the beginning there were many members, but as time went by, employment rates started to increase and, due to heavy work in the farm, facing cold and hot weather conditions as well as low payment rates, many decided to go back to factories.
At first spinach was planted (see video report), but due to lack of experience, the result obtained was lower than it was expected.
Then many other vegetables were planted, such as broccoli, corn, eggplant, cabbage, frizzy lettuce (Brazilian), manioc, Brazilian okra, jilo, leek, among others.
Leek (“negui” in Japanese) is the vegetable that has brought best results, with a shed containing machinery for cleaning and cutting, as well as an assembly line for packaging the product, which is sold by one of the local co-operatives.
Today the agriculture department consists of 2 tractors, 3 small trucks, a leek harvester, a greenhouse for sowing and seedlings, among other machinery.
The good development of the agriculture department is due to many local Japanese farmers’ support, and today we have 10 hectares of productive area.
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