The serious impact of the high crude oil prices is spreading to Shizuoka Prefecture's specialty greenhouse melon farmers who use heavy oil as fuel for heating agricultural houses.
Shizuoka Prefecture is the largest producer of greenhouse melons in Japan, and Fumiyoshi Nakajo (64) of Fukuroi City's 10 agricultural houses use heavy oil as fuel for heating boilers to cultivate the specialty crown melons. I am using.
According to local agricultural cooperatives due to the high crude oil price, the price of heavy oil per liter in Shizuoka prefecture was about 95 yen last month, which is about 30 yen higher than the same month last year.
When cultivating greenhouse melons, it is necessary to keep the temperature inside the house at about 25 degrees Celsius, and Mr. Nakajo uses 20 kiloliters of heavy oil a month every year, so the monthly burden is hundreds of thousands of yen. Is expected to increase.
Mr. Nakajo has installed a transparent curtain to keep warm in the house in order to reduce the amount of heavy oil used, but it raises a sense of crisis.
Mr. Nakajo said, "There are many elderly melon farmers in the area, and many people want to quit because they cannot afford the increase in the price of heavy oil. Now, I just hope that the price of crude oil will go down. That's it. "