Japanese horseradish farmers fear for future amid climate changeWasabi, essential for sushi, is usually grown along streams in narrow valleys, leaving farms prone to disastersBy Irene Wang / Reuters, TOKYOMasahiro Hoshina, a Japanese farmer, starts worrying about typhoon season months before it begins, haunted by memories of the heavy rains and landslides that washed away wasabi farms during one 2019 storm. It’s getting stronger,” said the 70-year-old farmer in Okutama, west of downtown Tokyo. The need for replanting and careful tending meant it’s taken nearly three years for sushi farms there to recover. Wasabi Farmer, Masahiro Hoshina, 72, in May grates a harvested wasabi root on a slat for his lunch, at his house in Okutama Town, Tokyo, Japan. “In the past, we served all the cold soba noodles with a piece of raw wasabi, but now we can no longer do that,” Onishi said.
