One of the latest agricultural innovations comes from a pharmacist-turned-farmer from Japan.

Naoki Ejima, 63, of Fukui City studied agriculture at a local training facility in 2021 and was challenged by his instructor who told him that bananas cannot grow in the snowy region, Straits Times (ST) reports.

Ejima built greenhouses and started with seedlings to eventually overcome the challenge. He made the fruit resistant to the cold temperature by applying special treatments to the seedlings before planting, and grew the plant at under 15 degrees Celsius, according to ST.

Ejima now produces 20,000 so-called Echizen bananas per year and became a local supplier of the fruit. The fruit sells for a premium price of 600 yen for a bunch of three to six bananas.

Meanwhile, Chinese and Australian researchers produced a new variety of tomatoes through genetic engineering.

In a paper on the experiment done at the Biotechnology Research Institute at Xianghu Laboratory in Zhejiang, China, and published online on 24 January in the peer-reviewed Journal of Integrative Agriculture, the researchers deactivated the tomato gene SIBADH2, which suppresses the plant’s aroma, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports.

The bioengineered tomato’s fruits and leaves smell like popcorn, according to SCMP.