A Change of Guard

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Monday 23 March 2015

HIRONOBU KURATA: How a Japanese volunteer spiced up Cambodia's pepper industry

Hironobu Kurata with some of his pepper products (Kazuyoshi Sako)
Hironobu Kurata with some of his pepper products (Kazuyoshi Sako)
By EMI TADAMA/ GLOBE Staff Writer
PHNOM PENH--Three pepper vines that survived the ruinous period of the Khmer Rouge and civil war held the key to a revival of the spice industry here for which Cambodia was famed decades ago.
But it probably would not have happened without the unrelenting efforts of a Japanese aid volunteer.
Hironobu Kurata's quest for the pepper industry to once again take root in Cambodia led him to start his own business in the same field.
How that came about was apparent during a visit to his peppercorn operation in Cambodia's capital. While three women in white coats sorted black peppercorns, Kurata, 45, grabbed a bottle of his product and offered it, saying, “Please smell this aroma.”
It gave off a fruity scent that belied the sight of the shriveled peppercorns in the bottle.
“This aroma has all the characteristics of Cambodian pepper that used to be praised as the world's best,” Kurata said, as he went on to explain the story of Cambodia re-embracing the peppercorn industry.
His company, Kurata Pepper Co., harvests four tons of peppercorns a year from its 5.8-hectare farm. It not only sells its products in Cambodia but also exports them to Denmark, Germany and Japan.

When Kurata first came to Cambodia in 1992, pepper cultivation was almost nonexistent due to the country's 20-year civil war.
That summer, Kurata arrived in Phnom Penh as a voluntary worker of a nongovernmental organization to help displaced people. A peace accord had just been reached among the country's rival factions.
“Kurata was especially spirited (among aid workers) and eager to see anything,” recalled Katsuhiro Shinohara, 70, who served as a counselor at the Japanese Embassy in Cambodia in those days.
In a protection center for displaced people, Kurata prepared meals and helping them get ready for resettlement. While going about these tasks, he came to grips with the difficulties of reconstruction activities that depended on other countries.
Even if schools were built, the country had few teachers. There was no system in place even to nurture teachers.
A resident of the center told him, “I am worried about whether I can make a living after I leave here.”
After pondering the problem, Kurata realized that raising the level of domestic industries would contribute to better living standards.
He returned to Japan and graduated from a university. Then, in spring 1994, he returned to Phnom Penh.
He tried to export fruits, such as durian and coconuts, to Japan. However, airlines refused to transport durian because of its strong odor, while coconuts tended to rupture during flight because they could not withstand changes of atmospheric pressure.
THREE TREES SURVIVE
In 1995, however, Kurata stumbled on a way to turn things around.
One of his grandparent’s brothers, who worked in Cambodia before the civil war as a trading company employee, showed Kurata an old brochure with statistics of the country's agricultural output around 1960.
Kurata learned that Cambodia produced 1,500 tons of pepper annually at that time.
He also turned to a British encyclopedia his family bought for him when he was a child. It described the quality of Cambodian pepper, calling it the world's No. 1.
Armed with this information, Kurata visited markets across the country in search of people who were still cultivating pepper.
He finally came across an individual, who told him: “I survived living in a camp run by the Pol Pot faction. When I returned home, I found just three pepper trees that had survived without withering.”
Kurata was convinced the pepper industry could be revived as Cambodia's climate and soil conditions were particularly suitable.
Starting with the three trees, the man was expanding his pepper farm little by little. Kurata urged him to export his products.
To start out, Kurata borrowed a hectare of farmland from the man and employed him as he used traditional farming methods that relied on natural compost and no chemicals.
Through trial and error, Kurata worked to increase his yield. He also looked for buyers in Cambodia and Japan, but found none.
In those days, the market rate of pepper around the world was about $3 (356 yen) per kilogram. Kurata’s pepper came in at $10.
He networked over the telephone, but most people refused to meet him. Even when he did set up a meeting and handed out his pepper products, he got nowhere.
Kurata returned to his office one day to find his personal computer had been stolen. His driver had also disappeared, along with the vehicle.
Kurata hit a low point and wondered whether to keep going with his business. He managed to make a living as an interpreter and by importing used medical equipment.
Yukinori Hibi, 39, a United Nations World Food Program official who was stationed in Cambodia at the time, recalled an occasion when a Japanese friend of Kurata got in his face at a party.
“Don’t continue to pursue your dream indefinitely,” the friend told Kurata, who seemed to be at a loss for words.
“When I went to Kurata’s home for a chat, I always noticed containers of pepper in a corner of his room,” Hibi said. “I think that as Kurata believed in the value of the pepper, he was not able to abandon it.”
WIFE GETS ON HIS CASE
In 2003, Kurata married a woman he had met in Japan. It proved to be a turning point.
His wife, Yuki, now 44, took issue with his business methods all the time.
She criticized the packaging he used for his products, telling him that they would not sell. She suggested he try to sell them “as souvenirs to foreigners who visit Cambodia.”
Yuki, who has a talent for drawing, designed the logo of his shop. She sat at her sewing machine to stitch packaging using traditional Cambodian cloth. She also traveled to neighboring Thailand in search of high-quality paper bags.
Kurata flipped out, telling Yuki, “My business is not selling paper.”
But he embraced her marketing ideas. Then, his pepper products began to take off.
“He was stubborn and made black and white judgments about everything. He also had strong likes and dislikes about people. But now he has become softer,” Yuki said of her husband.
The pepper farm that Kurata’s firm runs employs six people. It also buys pepper from farmers who are contracted to his firm.
Pepper production has reached 40 tons annually, with sales amounting to $250,000.
Kurata also gives seminars to nurture entrepreneurs who try to solve social problems through business activity.
“What I can do is just to help Cambodians. Only when they work for themselves will they be able to prosper and make their country affluent,” Kurata said.
“Unlike coffee, pepper production areas (in the world) have yet to become brands. Cambodian pepper has a long history and is of high quality. It is my dream to make the pepper famous, just like the Angkor Wat temple complex.”
By EMI TADAMA/ GLOBE Staff Writer

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well done; I wish all Cambodians people are as resourceful as you are Mr Kurata. If they are applying the same concept as what you had done with you business ideas in starting up an agribusiness as you did, there wouldn't be poor Khmers at all.