Welcome to Kyoto Group for Reduction of Agrochemical Pesticides (KGRAP) Homepage!!

 Our activities are;

1. Weekly meeting in our office and discuss agriculture and environment in Japan.
2. Field work in our pesticide-reduced orchard 2-3 times a year to monitor pests and diseases.
3. Advertising, selling, and dispatching mandarin oranges harvested in our orchard in Wakayama, Japan.

Since 2018, Mr Hajime Ogaki succeeded the orchard from Mr Takashi Nakata. He didn't have any experience in agriculture until then, but using his own experience from Apparel industry and personal connections via SNS, we're sure he'll be a new type of successful farmer.   

In our orchard, we have about 1,000 mandarin orange trees. To demonstrate that pesticide-reduced or pesticide-free agriculture is achievable, KGRAP has been conducting regular research every year since 1973 in the orchard. For example, "Scale insects" were the primary damage to trees and fruits, however, after start releasing "Rhyssapersuasoria; parasitic wasps" in 1987, the yield loss has greatly reduced.

Besides, we are seeking for alternative pesticides which are totally organic and environmentally friendly. So far, we tested

・Planting legumes to control weed and recharge soil

・Spraying mechanical oil to suffocate insects

・Spraying vinegar and "ehime ai" to prevent diseases

※"ehime ai" is a mixture of Natto bacteria, Lactic acid bacteria, Yeast, and sugar.

Some of these results were already published by a scientific journal in English (Itioka et al., 1992*). The monitoring results were also published as a report in Japanese. Dr Norio Ishida, our professor in this group, published a book in Japanese about the history and activities.  

We sell mandarin oranges at 3,000JPY per box (10 kg) excluding postage. We only have this page in English, but feel free to contact us if you are interested in our activities. 

 c/o Dr N. Ishida
 People's Institute of Environment
 305 Ishikawa-building, 21 Tanaka Satonomae, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan 606-8227

 E-mail: kgrap（at）kais.kyoto-u.ac.jp
 ※Please change (at) to @.

 *Ichioka, T., T. Inoue and N. Ishida. 1992. A ten-year study of population dynamics of citrus pests in the pesticide-reduced orchard. Researches on Population Ecology 34: 227