Belated Happy New Year. This time my yearly Christmas holidays in Belgium were combined with a business trip of 4 days in The Netherlands.

My colleague flew over from Japan after New Year and stayed in Eindhoven so I drove from Antwerp each day to pick him up and visit some companies in the south of The Netherlands. From Antwerp to Eindhoven it is a distance of about 100km one-way so combined with the other drives in The Netherlands, I drove around 1000 km which was rather exhausting.However, it was well worth it and even nicer to come back home each day and see my family again.

Work-related it was also a very interesting trip with visits to our current partners in Holland but also to some farms where they are using the equipment we’re selling in Japan.In general, we could conclude that farmers in The Netherlands are way ahead of Japan in terms of technology and thinking. For example, most of the large pig farms in Holland only have 2-3 people working for them but they easily keep their equipment clean by doing regular maintenance and working efficiently. On the contrary, you have almost a double number of people working at a farm of the same size in Japan where the maintenance of the equipment is very bad. Expectations are that Japan will be on the same level in a few years: a chance for our company to introduce and sell new technologies in Japan!

フロンティアインターナショナル J.W.