Twenty-six years experience of commercialization on potato irradiation at Shihoro, Japan

The township of Shihoro is Japan’s biggest and most advanced dairy and field farming district which has been producing potatoes as a key crop. The potato irradiation plant was built at Shihoro in 1973 with a potato processing complex and has been shipping some 15,000 tons of sprout-inhibited potatoes a year during the sprouting season. From a technical viewpoint, the radiation efficiency of the Shihoro irradiator is lower than that of the usual irradiation facility using a carton box. The success of the Shihoro irradiator is shown in that radiation processing has been effectively included into one of the storage systems of a huge potato distribution facility. The sprout-inhibited potatoes as such are no guarantee of better business derived from potatoes, but producers see the merit of this process, because it makes possible year-round plant operations and planned shipments, keeps employees in year-round service and prevents rural depopulation, with an increase in the volume of business by expanding the area under crop. Recently in Japan, many companies have interests in commercial irradiation of spices, medical herbs and farm animal feeds before application to common foods.