Overview
May is the season when Hokkaido’s spring just begins to unfold — snow-capped mountains linger in the distance, the land has already awakened, greenhouse strawberries are setting fruit, asparagus spears push through the soil, and the dairy farms’ milk, eggs, desserts, and cheese are being organized into a complete value chain. This video introduces a six-day study tour designed for Asian agricultural practitioners. Its core objective is not to leave participants saying “Hokkaido is beautiful,” but to ensure that each participant, upon returning to their own region or enterprise, can answer three critical questions: “Which product category suits us?” “How do we connect primary, secondary, and tertiary industries?” and “How do we transform agriculture into a brand, an experience, a revenue stream, and a regional future?”
The video addresses the central pain points of agricultural upgrading in Asia — producers who can grow but not process, leaving their value paper-thin; processors who can manufacture but lack branding, capping their potential; and destinations with parks and scenic sites but no year-round visitor flow or viable operating model. Hokkaido’s insight is that genuine 6th Industrialization is not a simple sum of primary plus secondary plus tertiary industry. It is a systems engineering project that reorganizes land, products, people, consumption scenarios, and regional brands into an integrated whole.
The itinerary spans six dimensions: New Chitose Airport (a super-gateway for regional branding), Sapporo and Hokkaido University (pioneer history and agricultural extension systems), Yoichi and Niseko (greenhouse strawberries, orchard management, wineries, and residential tourism circuits), Akaigawa Village (dairy workshops, dessert production, forest experiences, and forest management associations), the Shiribeshi regional revitalization workshop (how ski-economy infrastructure combines with spring-through-autumn residence, agriculture, and architecture to form a year-round leveling model), and a final conversion seminar for participants from across Asia.
Key Points
- Pain Point Diagnosis: The real bottleneck in Asian agricultural upgrading lies not in slogans but in systems — isolated capabilities (cultivation, processing, branding) lack connective tissue, and projects easily become financial burdens
- Essence of 6th Industrialization: 6th Industrialization is not a simple addition of one plus two plus three. It is a reorganization of land, products, people, consumption scenarios, and regional brands — requiring a full-chain approach built from a single product category outward
- Year-Round Leveling: Genuine regional revitalization is not about seasonal business alone. It means reorganizing the four seasons, industries, population flows, and lifestyles into a sustainable operating model
- Return with an Action Plan: The study tour is designed around the principle of “arrive with your project, leave with your action checklist” — each participant maps insights to their own role (government, enterprise, integrated complex team) and identifies a viable conversion path
Conclusion
Hokkaido’s experience demonstrates that the future of agriculture lies not only in the fields, but also in workshops, airports, dining tables, residential stays, and people’s hearts. The core of 6th Industrialization is not learning about any single product, but understanding the pathway behind each one — how primary industry achieves standardization, how secondary industry adds value, and how tertiary industry creates experiences — ultimately translating these into each Asian country’s own regional revitalization projects.