Support for Sustainable Business Development

Through Consulting and Financing Activities, the AFFF Unit Supports the Sustainable Business Development of Customers

In response to the increasingly sophisticated and diverse management issues that customers are facing as a result of natural disasters and changes in social and economic conditions in Japan and overseas, the AFFF Unit promotes “consulting and financing activities” to help customers analyze their current situation and solve their problems with accompanied supports.

Support offered to customers in different management stages

Through intensive and ongoing consulting and financing activities, the AFFF Unit helps customers resolve issues according to their different management stages, such as start-ups at the time of establishment, expansion (growth) in the growth phase, and further development in the maturity phase.

Sharing current status and issues through financial analysis

We analyze financial situations based on the financial information provided by customers and compare them to the AFFF Unit management indicators for other companies in the same industry. Through this process, we visualize customer strengths and management issues and share this information with the customer.

Supporting Developing and Expanding Customer Sales Channels

Business Matching support using our nationwide network

The AFFF Unit uses the JFC’s nationwide network of 48 branch offices to match the purchasing needs of food processing and distributing companies for domestic agriculture, forestry, and fishery products with the sales needs of businesses in the agriculture, forestry, and fisheries industries, bringing together customers across prefectural borders.

This helps customers develop attractive products and enhance the products that they handle.

Advanced supports such as overseas expansion, etc. through collaboration with external networks

The AFFF Unit collaborates with external networks (Japan Professional Agriculture Total Support Organization (J-PAO), Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), and other organizations) to support the business growth of its customers and respond accurately to the diverse management issues they face, such as the development of new sales channels, financial improvement, and productivity enhancement.

For example, J-PAO gets assistance from its members from a wide variety of types of businesses and uses its agriculture-support knowhow to provide sales and commercialization support to customers. JETRO supports exports of Japanese agricultural, forestry, fishery products and food by providing information, consultation and business-matching opportunities with foreign buyers.

In addition, the AFFF Unit supports customers who are working on exporting agricultural products for the first time through cooperation with domestic and overseas trading companies by conducting Trial Export Support Projects (preparations for export, exporting procedures, sales feedback from export destinations, etc.).

Supporting Business Succession

To address the business succession issues of agricultural, forestry, and fisheries business operators, the AFFF Unit supports customers by providing information tailored according to the type and stage of business succession, referring and dispatching outside experts and relevant organizations, providing funds, and other means.

In addition, the AFFF Unit is reinforcing its information gathering and supports that are related to M&A and the like in the agricultural, forestry, and fisheries fields and providing business succession support to customers so that the management resources in these fields can be effectively handed down to the next generation.

Supporting Business Revitalization

We actively support business revitalization by customers, which is essential for the maintenance and development of local agricultural, forestry, and fisheries industries.

In particular, we collaborate with private financial institutions such as main financing banks and outside experts to support the formulation of business improvement plan through close communications with customers and provide ongoing management consultations and follow-up after the plans are implemented. Especially, as support for business revitalization by farmers, we conduct support activities that take into account the characteristics of agriculture including support for formulating plans provided by agricultural business advisors, support for business succession by utilizing the AFFF Unit's unique network, and consulting in collaboration with external experts in production technology.

In addition, we cooperate with related institutions to provide prompt and detailed responses to inquiries from customers whose businesses are affected by the impact of natural disasters including earthquakes, typhoons, and tsunamis, etc., contagious livestock diseases, and soaring oil prices and price hikes, etc., and work to support business restructuring and reconstruction.