Hokkaido’s Harvest Scenery: Autumn Edition
Hokkaido is known as Japan's food base, and is a treasure trove of a wide variety of foods, such as agricultural and livestock products, seafood, wine, sake and beer.
Autumn – from September to November – is the harvest season for fruits, potatoes and other root vegetables, rice, buckwheat and the like. It is also when marine products such as salmon and Pacific saury are landed.
We have gathered together some ‘taste of autumn’ harvest scenery, much anticipated by the people of Hokkaido.
Special feature
Fifty large boats leave three ports to fish for Pacific saury off the coast of eastern Hokkaido

The ban on large-scale fishing vessels (at least 100 tons), which are the mainstay of Pacific-saury net fishing in eastern Hokkaido, was lifted on August 20. Despite the forecast of low numbers of saury arriving in the region, 50 boats departed from three ports in the Kushiro-Nemuro subprefecture at just after midnight on that day, and headed towards international waters approximately 1,500 km away. At around midnight, large-scale vessels decked with blue and green lights to attract the fish, departed from Hanasaki Port in Nemuro, which has been Japan’s most prolific Pacific saury port – in terms of amounts landed – for 11 consecutive years. Families of the crews saw-off the boats as they left the quay one by one.
Deckhand Nakamura of the No. 88 Hanasaki-maru boat (199 tons) said, “We were encouraged by the small boats landing three tons. We’re hoping for a big catch, and that the fish are in good condition.”
According to the Fisheries Agency in July, the amount of saury in waters close to Japan is estimated to be even less than in 2019, in which the second worst catch in history was recorded.