From May 23 to June 6, 2026, a group of students from North Carolina State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) took part in a two-week study tour hosted by ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, spending much of the program at field sites and rural communities across the region rather than in a typical academic setting. The tour, “Forests, Water, and Agriculture in Japan,” paired visiting students with their ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø counterparts and combined lectures, field visits, and workshops around the central themes of forest management, water systems, food security, biodiversity, and disaster resilience.
For their first excursion, students traveled to ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø¡¯s Inabu Field and nearby mountain communities, where they experienced forest-based learning from multiple perspectives. They used 3D laser scanning technology to observe how forests can be measured and visualized, visited a local sawmill to learn about timber processing and local forest industries, and explored how forest management connects to watershed hydrology and disaster resilience. The excursion included activities at the Kaisho Forest, where students learned about forest recovery and biodiversity, as well as a pottery painting class that introduced them to local craft traditions.
Students also had a chance to visit ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø’s Togo Field, an agricultural facility about an hour from the Higashiyama Campus. There, students toured fields and livestock operations and sat down with graduate students for a discussion on food systems research. The day featured a session on traditional sake brewing, with a focus on Nagomi Sakura, an original sake developed by the Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences in partnership with a local brewery and the Aichi Center for Industry and Science Technology.
The sake is brewed using yeast isolated from a rare double-flowered cherry tree on campus and rice grown in ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø’s own fields. First produced in 2012 and known for its sweet, fruity taste, the sake is made in limited quantities each year and represents a direct link between work by researchers at ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø’s work and the region’s brewing traditions.
“One of the things that has surprised me is how adventurous the students have been,” said ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences Professor Takashi Gomi. “They are working together to create new ideas that are showing us new directions for research.”
Toward the end of the program, students returned to campus for a series of interdisciplinary workshops. Tagayasu Inc., a facilitation company, supported the sessions as students worked in groups to identify sustainability challenges and propose ideas for “resilient futures,” drawing on two weeks of field observations. Final presentations brought together students, faculty, and staff from both universities, capping the exchange with a farewell event and certificate ceremony.
“We have a lot of similarities in our agriculture, but we approach things a little bit differently as well,” said Dr. Adrienne Tucker, assistant director of international programs at NC State’s CALS. “In the end, we’re all trying to get to the same conclusions, and I think that’s what these programs are about.”
The visit builds on a long-running relationship between the two universities, which marked 40 years of partnership in 2025. This agriculture-focused study tour marked the first time ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø and NC State have run a program of this kind, and the two institutions continue to look for opportunities for students to learn directly from each other’s faculty and communities.
