Our predecessor, the Economic Research Division of the Norinchukin Bank, was founded sixty years ago in 1950. The purpose of the new division was defined thus at the time: “The establishment of an Economic Research Division devoted to studying financial and economic trends at large, conditions in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sector, and other such matters will ensure that the Bank’s management is at all times soundly grounded in extensive, accurate data. It will also give us the systematic capability, as the central institution of cooperative finance, to supply a steady stream of fresh, abundant data to affiliated organizations.”

The Bank’s research arm was spun off as a subsidiary in 1990 to form the Norinchukin Research Institute Co., Ltd., as it exists today. Our basic mission remains unchanged from that vested in the Economic Research Division sixty years ago, although its scope has expanded with the needs of the day. The growing range and depth of our investigations have led us to form partnerships with universities and research institutions in Japan and abroad. We now send experts to lecture to Waseda University, Hitotsubashi University, and Tokyo University of Agriculture, and we have established a joint research and exchange program with China Agricultural University.