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I Am a Hyakusho: The Values and Ethics of Alternative Agriculture in Japan我は百姓なり:日本におけるオルタナティブ農業の価値観
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!!!I Am a Hyakusho: The Values and Ethics of
Alternative Agriculture in Japan !!:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!ABE, Shantonu
141001 !!!March, 2014 !!
!1
!!I Am a Hyakusho: The Values and Ethics of
Alternative Agriculture in Japan !!:
!!! !! !!
A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of The International Christian University
For the Baccalaureate Degree !! !! !
by ! !!ABE, Shantonu
141001 !!March, 2014 !!!!
Approved by __________________________ !MALARNEY, Shaun K.
Thesis Advisor
!2
!!!!Acknowledgements !
Reveal in Thine Farm the Glory of the Creator
-Ainou Gakuen Founding Principle ! !Crouched over a row of carrots in the humid heat of the Japanese summer, I was
weeding along with two others. The heat was almost unbearable, and the row seemed to stretch on. I stood up to provide relief to my limbs and my back. Suddenly, a fresh breeze sprung up from nowhere. It rustled past the trees and whispered across the stream; it brought relief from the intense heat. And in that moment, I recognized my, our, smallness in the face of nature. Here I was, struggling with some weeds in a small field. I felt humbled. Strangely enough, in that moment I felt at peace with the universe. Farming does that to you.
My first experiences with agriculture came through my parents, whose work meant that my sister and I would more often than not be spending our vacations in small agricultural communities in West Bengal of India. I believe that farming still provides me with a way of connecting back to my family, to those times and experiences. I would like to thank my parents and my sister for their love and support, and for encouraging me to pursue my dreams.
One of my hopes is that I can make the reader interested enough in the question of food sovereignty to do something about it. This thesis is incomplete; it is not possible to understand and convey the farmers in their entirety: their warmth, their dedication and passion, and their sincere wish to make the world a better place for all of us. I sincerely wish that the reader visit a farm nearby, or a farm mentioned in this thesis (I have used real names within this work) in order to find out for herself what I have been so lucky to experience.
For my research, I am indebted to the farmers in the Yasato region for allowing me a glimpse into their lives and for welcoming me into their community. Particular thanks must go to Shunsuke Iwasaki and Misako Iwasaki for kindly allowing me to stay with them and set up base. The various conversations that we had were enriched by their profound knowledge and enthusiasm. I would also like to thank Takao Furuno of Fukuoka, Koutaro Sakamoto of Hiroshima, and Yuuki Uehara of Ehime along with their families. This work would have been impossible without their valuable insights and interesting work. I am also a graduate of Ainou Gakuen Agricultural High School, which has allowed me to access information about organic agriculture as a way of life.
Much of the heavy lifting was done at International Christian University. I would like to thank Professor Malarney for his guidance and sound advice in writing this thesis. More than that, I would like to thank him for the sense of purpose that he has given to all academic pursuits. ICU truly is a place to foster responsible global citizens. I would like to offer my special thanks to the staff at ICU Religious Center, Naomi Kazama and Emiko
!3
Yamamoto, and Reverend Shoko Kitanaka, for their unfailing kindness and support, and for seeing me through one of the most challenging periods of my life.
My life at ICU has been made possible through the donation of many generous people, and to them I extend my sincerest thanks. I would also like to mention the generous scholarships of The Mitsubishi UFJ Trust Scholarship and the Ningenjuku Foundation. The Ningenjuku Foundation in particular has allowed to be where I am today.
And finally, to my friends and special people, who were patient and kind even as I grew testier as deadlines approached. Thank you for making my years at ICU a rich learning experience to treasure forever. !! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!4
TABLE OF CONTENTS !
!Chapter 1: Introduction
Introducing The Study 1
The Literature Review ! 3 Field-work ! ! 8 Anthropology ! ! 10
Chapter 2: Resources
Precious Soil! ! 14 Soil as Dirt!! 16 Waste As a Resource! ! 17 The Machine.!! 20 Labor! ! 22
Chapter 3: Community
The Village and The City! ! 25 Local/Transnational! ! 27 Community and the Farmer! ! 29 The State and the Farmer! ! 31 Knowledge 33
Chapter 4: Visibility
Food and Images! 37 Food and Safety!! 40 Transparent Energy 43
!Chapter 5: Complexity
Simplified Agriculture 45
Antifragility!47 Multifunctionality! 49 The JAS Mark ! 51
Chapter 6: Why Farm?
!5
Motivation! 53 Children and Farming ! 56 Modernity! 60 Who is the Peasant? ! 61 Conclusions 63
Appendix 64
Bibliography! 68 Japanese Abstract !! 74 !! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!6
!!Chapter 1: Introduction
!Introducing the Study
How should we be farming? This is a question that is increasingly gaining
relevance in todays world, as food and its production is being recognized as one of the key
areas where pressing questions about the environment, what we eat, what our societies
look like and most importantly, how we should live, are converging. Agriculture is
considered by many to be a vestigial profession; a relic of a past age when food had to be
produced by so many hands working the soil. In an increasingly urbanized world, this
image is only reinforced, with many seeing agriculture as necessary only in the sense that
it is an unavoidable step in the steady march towards industrialization. At the same time,
we cannot survive without it. Agriculture is the way in which we produce the food that we
eat. Outside the city, it determines, and has determined, the landscape of human
settlements. And having been the main form of livelihood up until a few generations ago, it
has provided the foundation of many of the cultural practices and identities we assume in
the present day.
This ethnographic study seeks to shed light on alternative farming in
contemporary Japan. The attempt to locate and identify the Japanese alternative farmer in
today's world is an interesting quest, one which blurs all preconceived boundaries and
finds new connections in unexpected places.
In the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata, Krishna the charioteer is asked for advice
by Arjuna, the archer, who is in his time of greatest doubt. The ensuing monologue
between charioteer and archer, God and mortal, is about duty and is known as the
Bhagavad Gita. While advising Arjuna, Krishna assumes vishvarupa, the universal form.
The whole universe is contained within this form, and this form is the universe. In a similar
manner, the implications of agriculture are far reaching and cannot be confined within one
body. There are many aspects worthy of our attention in this unpretentious vocation that is
agriculture. And as the Bhagavad Gita revolves around the idea of the duty, so too does the
discourse around agriculture.
!7
The first part of this thesis deals with the fundamental question of How should
we farm? Being a human activity that arguably lies at the core and basis of all human
activity, the implications and ramifications of the way we farm are felt across all spheres of
life. With various terms being appropriated and philosophies hijacked, the organic form of
agriculture has slowly merged with its industrial counterpart in the common imagination.
The ethnographic research recorded in this thesis seeks to clearly demarcate the lines
between the two approaches to agriculture (the agrarian and the industrial)by drawing on
the observations of organic farmers on themes like the use of resources, the visibility of
processes, their sources of knowledge, the complexities they deal with, and their
motivation for working. The second part of this thesis deals with a more urgent issue:
Why we need to farm. Farming in Japan, as well as the rural farming communities that
are supported by this occupation are on the wane, making this question more pertinent. In
drawing a clearer picture of the hyakusho, the Japanese smallholder farmer, and the ideal
society they envision, this thesis explores their notions and ideas such as non-exploitation,
sustainability and responsible stewardship. The anti-thesis of the modern consumer, they
also provide a powerful counter-narrative to the dominant market-based paradigm of our
times, embodying instead an exceedingly self-sufficient lifestyle that echoes Japanese
ideals of thrift and contentedness.
I also locate the organic farmers in Japan within a larger framework, drawing
relations to farmers in other nations and seeking commonalities between these groups. The
local provides a glimpse into the global, and global movements play out in the local
context.
!The Literature Review
!8
!
!The graph above locates the predominant forms of agriculture along axes of scale
and ethic. The third axis, between consumer and producer, shows the role of the people
within the different forms of agriculture. Based on the research of many of the books I
have consulted, the growth of the consumerist culture is synonymous with the shift of
agriculture into the third quadrant, which thus calls for a predominant consumer class,
whilst the first quadrant calls for more producers and involved 'citizens'. Through the
literature review, I will try to explore the various forms of agriculture presented in this
graph. My thesis is that it is not possible to reconcile the agrarian ethic with large-scale
operations, and that more producers are required in order to achieve food sovereignty.
The questions of how, and why, we should farm are pertinent in the case of Japan,
which is increasingly on the brink of an agricultural crisis. The numbers paint a grim
picture. As of 2010, 400,000 hectares of farmland were left fallow, accounting for nearly
10 percent of Japans 4.55 million hectares of farmland. Japan's agricultural sector has
been steadily declining for decades. Overall farm output in 2008 was about 30% lower
than the all-time high recorded in 1984, and the average age of a farmer is over 65. The
number of farmers and the total amount of arable land have been declining for half a
century(TPP or No, Aging Farm Sector Needs True Reform 2013). In order to combat this
!9
general trend, the government is trying to push for consolidation of farmland, announcing
many deregulatory measures and financial support for large-scale farms. Through its
growth strategy proposed as one of the arrows of Abenomics, the government seeks
to double the income of the farming regions within a span of ten years, and to increasethe
number of farming firms by about 300% to 50 thousand (Otake and Yoshida 2013).
A total of 1,071 companies have launched food businesses since the Agricultural
Land Law was revised in 2009(Nakata 2013), allowing corporations to rent farmland
across the country. Farming firms include Lawson, the countrys second-biggest
convenience store chain, now runs as many as 10 large farms across the country. Another
retail chain, the Aeon group also has plans to run 30 large-scale farms by fiscal 2015(Aeon
Plans 30 Big Farms by FY2015 2013). The Abe administration and ruling bloc are
planning to make such large-scale farms the only recipients of rice subsidies (Rice
Subsidies for Big Players Only? 2013) as a way to improve the efficiency of the
agricultural sector ahead of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade agreement that is
being predicted to decimate Japanese agriculture as it is.
The introduction of corporations is also expected to bring more of the younger
generation into 'agriculture' and repopulate the rural areas of Japan. The use of more
information technology is also being hailed as a way of increasing efficiency while
reducing crop yields. GPS positioning, cloud-based manuals with relevant information
shared across farmers, the collection and analysis of large amount of data and a greater
ability to reach out to customers are being cited as some of the benefits(Info Tech May
Rescue Japans Farms 2013). From this information, it can be gathered that the government
is pushing for a move into the third quadrant, basing improved production on the principles
of food security. Previous studies by noted Japanese environmentalists Yukiko Kada and
Hiroyuki Torigoe place these kinds of developments under the modern technicism
paradigm, citing their reliance on greater concentration of power and a discontinuity with
past traditions (Kada 2006).
The large-scale and industrial third quadrant has been under the scrutiny of many
writers in the past few years. Michael Pollan and Raj Patel both describe how the industrial
setup of modern agriculture has increased the distance between the producer and the
consumer, obscuring the true costs of cheap food. In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan
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examines and compares mainly two food chains: the industrial food chain run according to
'the logic of human industry' and a shorter, more transparent food chain where Pollan either
grew, hunted or gathered all the ingredients by himself. Understanding just how much
effort and time went into the preparation of one meal through the latter food chain leads
Pollan to question just what is being sacrificed in order to provide the convenience that the
former chain offers (Pollan 2007). Paul Roberts in 'The End of Food' (Roberts 2009) argues
that the sacrifices are more than just a poor meal: he likens the growing ignorance of the
consumer regarding food to the handing over of the control of one's life. He also points
out that the right way to produce food has turned into an extraordinarily complex problem
because it lies at the intersection of so many variables, human decisions arguably
misguided by market ideologies.
Social justice is also being sacrificed. Trade in agricultural goods is rarely fair, as
Roberts points out (Roberts 2009:169) and transacted within a skewed global trade
structure, it is often the First World countries that exploit the Third World and developing
countries. Raj Patel employs the imagery of the hourglass (Patel 2008) when describing the
flow of food from many producers, through a handful of multinational corporations, on to
numerous consumers. The small number of corporations in the middle leads to a
concentration of wealth that deprives both the producer and the consumer of the full value
of their food (Patel 2008:1214). Those who stand to gain the most are also the ones who
have amassed the most power, he argues, pointing out that trade agreements like the TPP
are usually bartered with the heavy involvement of such organizations. Such neoliberal
policies are justified using the rhetoric of 'food security', which purports to aim to feed the
world through the spread of market principles. William Schanbacher, in his book 'The
Politics of Food', (Schanbacher 2010) contrasts this notion of food security with food
sovereignty, a debate that I have mapped out on the graph and which will be explored in
further detail later.
Food sovereignty, a concept that I have placed in the first quadrant, is one of the
ways in which many contemporary commentators in agriculture are pinning their hopes on
for a more just and healthy food system. The examples of Cuba, forced to adopt a nation-
wide movement of organic agriculture in the face of declining Soviet power leading to a
drying up of agriculture-related imports, and La Via Campesina, a movement to empower
!11
peasants around the world, have been raised as models that need to be emulated (Wiebe,
Desmarais, and Wittman 2010). Philip Ackerman-Leist, an expert on sustainable food
systems, also suggests Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) as a viable alternative.
(I)deas about food sovereignty force us to rethink our relationships with food, agriculture
and environment. But perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of food sovereignty is that it
forces us to rethink our relationships with one another (Wiebe et al. 2010:4). The concepts
which are placed within the first quadrant fit in with the concept of life environmentalism
as proposed by Torigoe and Kada: the idea that there exists neither discontinuity nor
separation between nature and living (Kada 2006). At the same time, it is acknowledged
that this task will be increasingly impossible in the context of the consumerist culture that
is increasingly spreading its effects to all corners of the globe. However, many hyakusho
are accomplishing just this, and my research hopes to focus on these people: the people
who persist with small-scale agriculture along principles of an agrarian ethic.
The second quadrant is more problematic. Purporting to be run on the principles
of organic farming, these farms appropriate the value that is attached to the notions that
organic embodies and use it to raise a profit. Vandana Shiva, seen by many as the
spokesperson for an alternative food system, calls the farms which lie within the second
quadrant pseudo-organics(Shiva 2008:125). Pollan also questions the viability of these
big organics(Pollan 2007:158184).At the same time, Paul Roberts believes that any
viable long-term solution will lie somewhere in this second quadrant, with mid-sized farms
producing the bulk of food in an acceptable manner (Roberts 2009:275284). However, I
disagree, and as I hope my research shows, ideas of agrarianism are irrevocably linked to
the small-scale. The dangers of organic being appropriated are very real. The book
'Agrarian Dreams' by Julie Guthman highlights the poor working conditions for laborers
on so-called organic farms in California, discussing the many human rights abuse that are
occurring on the very farms that promote their products by exploiting the myths that have
come to be associated with the word 'organic' (Guthman 2004). 'Labor and the
Locavore' (Gray 2014) also calls for a comprehensive food ethic that encompasses not only
the final product (the food) but also the people involved in its production. Labor rights
become a key point of discontent with the labor-intensive organic sector. In a similar
manner, the JAS standards adopted in Japan do not specify that products need be produced
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within Japan. It allows for certification of products grown abroad, something that many
organic farmers believe is against the spirit of organic agriculture.
Most of this thesis moves back and forth between the first and the third quadrants,
and tries to argue for a society that aims to shift from the latter to the former. This thesis
aims to fill the gap created by the dearth of literature written from the viewpoint of
alternative farmers in Japan. Many of the recent debates on agriculture have focused on
food and how the consumer relates to it, while books by Japanese farmers often fail to
locate their experiences within larger movements like food sovereignty. This leads to a
situation where movements for food sovereignty and calls for its spread seem to be
concentrated around the Global South. It is important for hyakusho to participate in the
global movement for food sovereignty and bring their values into the global debate
occurring at the nexus of energy, food and society and thus involve First World actors in
the struggle for regaining control over our food chain. Finally, our understanding of human
psychology has also changed drastically in the last decade. Perhaps the most telling change
has been the exposure of the myth of the economically rational Homo oeconomicus.
Understanding the hyakusho requires a more nuanced understanding of what motivates us
humans, and this understanding may perhaps hold the key to the quest to creating a more
sustainable society.
!Field-work
Yasato is a town in Ibaraki prefecture of Japan. Located about 100 kilometers
north-east of Tokyo, it is suitably located: not too far but not too close to the largest city in
Japan. The area is surrounded on three sides by low mountain ranges, part of the Yamizo
Mountains. These are the first mountains that one encounters as one heads north-east from
the Kanto plain, and the landscape is representative of the quintessential Japanese rural
landscape (satoyama). The low hills surround the Yasato settlement to form a basin
(bonchi) which creates the updrafts that make Yasato a mecca for para-gliders. Many of the
farmers noted that the scenery in this region reminded them of their childhoods spent in the
rural areas (inaka) influencing their decision to settle here. Yasato was merged with the
closest city, Ishioka, in 2005 as part of an ongoing trend of enlargement of administration
areas in order to reduce the strain on local government bodies. Local farmland is
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concentrated in the lower plains, but is available in smaller plots on the slopes of the hills.
Owing to the landscape of Yasato, agriculture could only be small-scale, with plots of land
including the terraced fields so evocative of Japan. This constraint meant that the large-
scale agriculture that came to occupy most of the open plains around Yasato could not
make its entry into this area.
The data kept by the Ishioka municipal government suggests that around 27% of
the farmers in the area are practicing subsistence farming (jikyujisoku teki nougyou), with
the average area of the farms being 18.4a. During one interview, one farmer reckoned that
there were around 70 organic farmers in Yasato; of these, there only 10 farmers who were
originally in Yasato and decided to switch over; the rest of the farmers were first
generation farmers (Ujita). I interviewed 8 farming families in this region, many of whom
were first generation farmers. These include the Iida () family (2 children), the
Sugiyama() family (2 children), the Shibata() family (3 children), the Kimatas(
) (married), Kimura() and Kurata(). The Ujitas() (2 children) were one
of the first settlers, starting farming around the year 1985. They were followed by the
Sugiyama family who settled in Yasato in 1997.
Jiro Kakei (), one of my main informants, also farms in this area. Kakei
used to be a professor of philosophy at Kyoto University, but decided to start farming in
order to put theory into practice. He has been farming for over three decades in this region
along with his partner. On his Rokuon Farm (Rokuon being the place where the Buddha
gave his first sermon after enlightenment to an audience of deer), Kakei uses minimal
machinery as he tries to live according to the principles of Mahatma Gandhi.
Takao Furuno is one of the most renowned organic farmers in Japan. He is
credited with the spread of duck-integrated farming (aigamo nouhou) across the world, and
particularly to Korea. He is based in Keisen town of Fukuoka prefecture, in the southern
island of Kyushu and runs a farm with his wife and two of his sons known as the Aigamo
Kazoku Noujou (The Aigamo Family Farm). He has achieved world-wide acclaim for the
possibilities that his agricultural method promises. The subject of various documentaries
produced both internationally and domestically, he has also been raised as an example of
small-scale agriculture in the book, The End of Food He has also started a group to share
!14
experiences of farming with ducks (Zenkoku Aigamo Inasaku Kai) with hopes of creating a
common platform where farmers from across the world are able to share information about
better farming practices (Furuno and Sato 2012:13).
Yuuki Uehara is a fruit cultivator in Ehime Prefecture in Shikoku. Yuuki, his wife
Wakana and three children live together in a 130 year-old house that they reformed with
the help of a friend. After having lived in India (West Bengal) for several years, they came
back to Japan to take part in community building. Uehara grows citrus fruits and is also
experimenting with other different fruits on his farm Nanchiya which he has started in
2011 after an apprenticeship with a local cultivator.
Koutaro Sakamoto is a pig farmer living in Mihara City of Hiroshima with his
wife and three children on their farm called Sakuranoyama Noujou (Cherry Blossom
Farm) He collects feed from the wastes of the local community, turning what would be
trash into a useful resource. He is also highly interested in achieving energy self-
sufficiency, and his widely read blog chronicles his various undertakings regarding
appropriate technology.
Through my various conversations with these farmers, I tried to understand what
motivates them to farm in the manner they do and the things that they value. Through this
exercise, I hope to have been able to look at society from their viewpoint and highlight the
problems that they feel are expressed at present within our society and the solutions that
they propose.
!!
Anthropology
Any work in anthropology is accompanied by a reflection of what anthropology is
or should be. As a student of this discipline, it is often the case that one has no definitive
answer to just what it is that one does, or what the discipline of anthropology is about. This
endless soul-searching (by the discipline itself) while being a source of frustration at times,
gives some degree of freedom to the scholar eager to research something which captures
his interest. Through empirical observations, it strives to accurately reflect the increasingly
complex world which we inhabit, where knowledges are ever-shifting and the world of
yesterday is unrecognizable to the world of tomorrow. Anthropologist Ted Lewellen notes
!15
that the easy categories of the past seem oddly out of place in a world that is fragmented
and in which space and time have imploded(Lewellen 2002:3). Indeed, no longer are the
boundaries geographical, or even chronological. Boundaries are ever-shifting and driven
out of traditional contexts by the winds of change. Anthropology however, provides the
tools necessary to acknowledge the changing structure of these categories and make sense
of them across cultures for the reshaping of categories (ours and other peoplesthink of
taboo) so that they can reach beyond contexts in which they originally arose and took their
meaning so as to locate affinities and mark differences is a great part of what translation
comes to in anthropology(Geertz 1983:12).
Clifford Geertz, in his interesting analysis of the discipline, accurately points out
what the role of anthropology might be, and what it has to contribute to the world. It
seems likely that whatever use ethnographic texts will have in the future, if in fact they
actually have any, it will involve enabling conversation across societal linesof ethnicity,
religion , class, gender, language, racethat have grown progressively more nuanced,
more immediate, and more irregular. The next necessary thingis to enlarge the
possibility of intelligible discourse between people quite different from one another in
interest, outlook, wealth, and power, and yet contained in a world where, tumbled as they
are into endless connection, it is increasingly difficult to get out of each others
way (Geertz 1988:147). More specifically, it will allow for a way to initiate a dialogue
between the predominant consumerist society and the hyakusho.
More importantly, anthropology teaches us humility, the ability to entertain the
thought that we might be wrong. 'To see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening. To
see others as sharing a nature with ourselves is the merest decency. But it is from the far
more difficult achievement of seeing ourselves amongst others, as a local example of the
forms human life has locally taken, a case amongst cases, a world among worlds that the
true value of anthropology is realized (Geertz 1988:16). Take, for instance, Marshall
Sahlin's 'Stone Age Economics' (1972). This book seeks to explain the concept of affluence
that is very different from the meaning that it was being used in modern society, making it
relevant to this thesis which seeks to understand what motivates the hyakusho:
For there are two possible courses to affluence. Wants may be
easily satisfied by producing much or desiring little. The familiar
!16
conception, the Galbraithean way, makes assumptions peculiarly
appropriate to market economies: that mans wants are great, not to
say infinite, whereas his means are limited, although improvable:
thus, the gap between means and ends can be narrowed by industrial
productivity, at least to the point that urgent goods become
plentiful. But there is also a Zen road to affluence, departing from
premises somewhat different from our own: that human material
wants are finite and few, and technical means unchanging but on the
whole adequate. Adopting the Zen strategy, a people can enjoy
unparalleled material plentywith a low standard of living
(Sahlins 1972:2)
Finally, it must be noted that many anthropologists feel that this discipline should
be activist in nature. No more can anthropology afford to be a mere observer, a bystander.
Instead, it must observe what problems a society might have and then seek solutions for it.
'Anthropology must be ready to contest unjust systems of domination, along the way
seeking to decide what injustice actually is, and be prepared to bring potentially
controversial issues to light. Only then will anthropology 'contribute to the collective effort
that the social sciences as a whole need to make to confront a social world which has
changed almost out of recognition in a few short years' (Pottier 1999:4). There is a
similarity here with the opposition to exploitative practices that the organic farmers I
interviewed had. Anthropology allows the researcher to go out in the field and ask
questions, enabling an alternative face of society to emerge. Particularly in the case of
literature about farming, James Scott observes that 'historians and journalists, for the most
part, write history from the large urban centers and from the perspective of literal elites.
The rural population is generally treated as the more-or-less passive recipient of projects
hatched and implemented from above'(Scott 2012:4). This work, and indeed work by many
anthropologists working with agricultural communities can help to restore a voice to those
who dwell far from the center and form an understanding of minorities on their terms.
Through my year of researching for this thesis, anthropology gave me a reason to
focus my attention on the fascinating world that is organic agriculture. It provided me with
an opportunity to listen to and learn from people who have their 'skin in the game',
!17
meaning that their livelihoods depend on the way they perceive their world and act (Taleb
2013:l. 6620). And finally, to do what anthropology does best: to connect the dots, to make
sense of seemingly unrelated ideas by figuratively bringing different people together at the
same table and getting them to talk to each other.
!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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!Chapter 2: Resources
!Precious Soil
A farmer has to make several decisions to manage her resources that allow her to
achieve goals of agricultural production. One of the key resources in farming is the soil.
Indeed, 'organic philosophy began as a philosophy of the soil(Guthman 2004:l.3167), and
it is not hard to understand why, once one begins to understand the centrality of soil in
agriculture. One of the most interesting terms that deal with soil in Japan is the idea of
shindofuji, with four chinese characters denoting that soil and the body are inseparable.
Soil making, or tsuchi-dsukuri in Japanese, refers to the ways in which farmers
nourish and maintain their soil. The centrality of this practice is readily apparent when one
hears of the various 'factions' (ha) in agriculture that arise as a result of differences in the
way one treats the soil. Hidemasa Koizumi is well known within organic farming circles
for his method of collecting fallen leaves from the nearby satoyama and composting it
before putting it in his soil (Koizumi 2004); Furuno relies on his aigamo ducks to replenish
soil fertility; and most farmers add some version of compost, taihi, the contents of which
are as varied as the number of farmers who make it (Hashimoto 2011). Some farmers take
precise measurements of the nutrients in the soil and replenish any depleted mineral
(Solomon and Reinheimer 2013); others make it a point to add various bacteria cultures to
the soil in order to improve the bacterial composition of the soil. A whole other group
advocates the no-till practices of Masanobu Fukuoka (of 'One-Straw Revolution fame),
preferring to trust the power of nature (shizen no chikara ni makaseru).
Understanding the soil, therefore, is key to understanding those who profess to be
its stewards. But soil is significant for people in general: Soil is our most under-
appreciated, least valued and yet essential natural resource' (Montgomery 2012:3). In his
masterful inquiry into the importance of soil, David Montgomery notes, 'soil is an
intergenerational resource, natural capital that can be used conservatively or
squandered'(Montgomery 2012:5). He highlights the problems of erosion, reporting that an
estimated twenty-four billion tons of soil are lost annually around the worldseveral tons
for each person on the planet (2012:4). This is something that we should be worried about
!19
when we look back on collapsed civilizations. Soil, of all things, brought down ancient
societies that abused their land and paid the ultimate price, leaving a legacy of degraded,
worn-out fields that impoverished descendants (2012:l.61). The deserts of Egypt, the
desolation of Rapa Nui and the fall of the Roman empire have all been linked to the ill-
effects of soil abuse.
The hyakusho I interviewed, however, understood the value of this precious
resource. Soil in Japan, Furuno says, acts as a record of the efforts of previous generations
of farmers to make the lean soil more fertile. By growing legume cover crops and adding
night soil, they managed to build up a layer of topsoil rich in humus, a layer that is almost
ten centimeters deep in places. It represents the gradual accumulation of labor and organic
material, a treasure within which lies the seeds of sustainability (Furuno and Sato
2012:57).
The way we treat our soil also speaks to us about ourselves, revealing to us an
important aspect of human psychology. Looking back on history from the perspective of
soil reveals an uncomfortable truth about our ability to grasp change over time: our
memory and attention spans are short. Efforts to reverse the course of soil erosion tend to
get hijacked by other priorities (Montgomery 2012:l.76). Soil is a valuable resource
because it takes so long to form, and yet the time-spans involved do not allow it to capture
the collective imagination. It is not urgent enough to warrant our immediate attention and
decisive action. Instead, and as in all other environmental issues like climate change and
the extinction of species, it seems that the slower the emergency, the less motivated we are
to do anything about itDegradation has occurred over extended time spans that mask the
severity of the extended problem and prevent it from becoming a priority that compels
effective action' (2012:l.127). Jeffrey Sachs, the prominent economist, also laments the
drastic shrinking of the time horizon for public debate and its adverse effects on the way in
which we approach environmental issues, asserting that we cant address any of these
problems if we cant think systematically about the future (Sachs 2011:176).
!Soil as Dirt
Under an industrial ethic, soil is reduced to being just another resource,
something to be exploited by extracting the largest possible amount of nutrients as
!20
efficiently as possible. Applying the principles of increasing production in an industrial
setting has led to a change in the way agriculture is practiced, observes Kakei. In a
capitalist industry set-up, one of the most fundamental ways of increasing ones profits is
the reduction of production costs while maintaining the cost outputs. To maintain the same
level of output with lesser capital is something that is a relatively straightforward idea in
the service sector, but when this principle is applied in agriculture, it leads to a loss of
respect for the soil. Simply treated as another tool in production, its significance is
diminished and it is exploited in order to extract as much from it as possible. The
introduction of chemicals to the soil led to a fall in the quality of soil over the years in
exchange for marginal production gains in the short-term (Kakei and Shirato 2009:14).
Montgomery notes that conventional agriculture in the U.S in particular and in other
countries in general tends to view soil as a commodity, something to be used up and
thrown away. This is something that will not benefit later generations. Although it takes
around 200 years for a centimeter of topsoil to form, conventional agriculture typically
increases soil erosion to well above natural rates, resulting in a fundamental problem
where soil is depleted at a much faster rate than it accumulates, sometimes taking less than
a decade to lose centuries' worth of accumulated soil(Montgomery 2012:24). The logic of
expendable resources has also led to the operation Concentrated Animal Feeding
Operations (CAFOs) where animals are crowded into small spaces for the sake of
productivity, with no regard to the rights that the animals possess; again, they are just
tools (Kakei and Shirato 2009 :19).
!Waste as a Resource
One of the problems with the globalized industrial food chain is the tremendous
amount of food that is wasted. Ackerman-Leist estimates that around 1.3 billion tons of
food is wasted annually, a figure that translates into the wastage of more than one-third of
edible products(Ackerman-Leist and Madison 2013:l. 1413). Japan is guilty as well, with
sources suggesting that the amount of food wasted is in the range of 17 to 23 million tons,
again equal to roughly one-third of the food in circulation (An Appalling Waste of Food
2013). Sakamoto uses a novel approach to this problem of food wastes: he uses it to feed
his pigs. It is an innovative solution that addresses two problems, that of the rising prices
!21
of imported feed and the strain that is put on waste disposal facilities because of the large
amount of raw waste. I had the chance to help Sakamoto with the process of procuring and
preparing the feed for the pigs. We first visited the local garbage collection center.
Sakamoto has had experience working part-time for garbage collection companies before
he settled on his farm, and this experience stands him in good stead. He is on good terms
with the local garbage collection company, and he asks them to spare anything edible for
his pigs. The intrigued workers help out somewhat overzealously, and save anything that
looks remotely edible. When I am told that we will be rummaging through the waste, I
steel myself for nauseating odors and maggots, but am pleasantly surprised: decomposition
has not yet set in. Who says beggars cant be choosers? laughs Sakamoto as we pick our
way through the containers full of discarded vegetables that still look edible, lined up
behind the garbage trucks. Wherever we find signs of damage or rot, we throw it into the
back of the dump-trucks which will later head to the incinerators where everything will be
burnt. We keep the best for the pigs and throw away the rest since we have more food than
we will need. Our next stop is a local factory specializing in processing wheat. Behind the
low buildings housing the work area, there is a small refrigerated shed where all the waste
is kept. I come here twice a week, Sakamoto explains, as he opens up the shed and starts
handing me black trash-bags. They use these black bags to hide all the waste from the
eyes of the manager. At least they feel some shame! The bags are heavy; I peer inside and
see many packets of gyoza dumpling skins. These are the result of overproduction, the
predicted demand falling short of supply. These too! he says, grabbing some blue plastic
bags. In order to make the process of making the circular discs of dumpling skins more
efficient and speedy, the round pieces are cut out of rectangular sheets of kneaded wheat.
The leftover parts are thrown into the blue bags. Then there are some curiously squishy
bags. Fillings he explains. The seasoned meat that forms the filling of the dumpling is
also there, discarded. There was also one unopened sack of wheat, and half a sack of
cornstarch. Later, back on the farm, he shakes his head as he opens the sack of wheat.
What farmer would imagine the wheat that he put so much effort into would end up going
straight to the dump? It really is shameful. They really cannot understand nor imagine the
thought that goes into the production of this sack of wheat. Sakamoto does not buy animal
feed. The irony is not lost on him. Of the food that is gathered from around the world,
!22
processed, packaged and displayed on shelves, more than half finds its way to the landfill
in Japan. Food that is wrested from producers in impoverished parts of the world is used to
provide the Japanese consumer with enough choices. If not bought it goes into the dump
and becomes waste, or in this case, feed for pigs. Perhaps this is the symbol of power
within the exploitation economy: feeding surplus food taken from other nations and
feeding it to swine (Sakamoto 2013).
The third place on the route is the local tofu store. We receive two crates full of
okara, the pulp that is left over after the process of making tofu. We also receive two
buckets full of left-over tofu. Being a specialty shop (kodawari no aru mise)concerned
with selling only fresh tofu, any tofu left unsold would be thrown out. As Sakamoto thanks
the owner who has come out to greet us, Sakamotos eldest son (around 5 years old)
nonchalantly scoops up a slice of tofu out of the container and starts eating. Wanna try
some? he offers me the bucket. I take some of the tofu and eat cautiously. After all, this
was being thrown out. It tasted good with a very delicate texture. I ate some more. Our
round for the day was over. Other days take him to different shops, and between these
shops, he manages to procure more than enough food for his pigs.
Work begins after returning back to the farm. I start opening the packets of
dumpling skins. After a few minutes, the process becomes repetitive. I shift to opening
packets full of ramen noodles once every ten minutes or so in order to break the monotony.
I spend an hour and a half, removing all the plastic wrapping on the food. Over the next
few days, he will use a machine to chop up the chunks of wheat into smaller particles and
then leave them to ferment, increasing their nutritional value and also getting rid of
unnecessary chemicals. I cant feed them food that is supposed to be safe for humans to
eat because they wont touch it, referring to some food that is full of anti-oxidants and
other preservatives.
Furunos fields are also fertilized with a different form of waste: the manure from
the ducks as they swim in the paddy fields is integrated back into the soil. The manure
from Sakamotos pig farms also go back into the paddy fields. Organic systems are
essentially cyclic and have space for, even welcoming waste. On the other hand,
industrial notions of efficiency and speed mean that waste is problematic and has to be
!23
disposed of, be removed from the system as quickly as possible. Thus, the way in which
waste is viewed is another key aspect to demarcating organic and industrial agriculture.
On my last day in Hiroshima, Sakamoto proudly showed me a makeshift cage
made of wood panels he had scavenged. Inside were two chickens and a pig. In here goes
all our food scraps and left-overs. The pig eats some, the birds eat the rest, and what is not
eaten attracts insects which are delicious tidbits for the chickens. He goes on to explain
that this is how animal husbandry should be: the conversion of what is not edible to man
into something that is nutritious. This is a miniature ecosystem, and it encapsulates what I
am trying to achieve here.
!The Machine
The machine embodies a technology which is part of modern
science. Speed, scale, noise, glitter are its characteristics one
observes at first glance. The machine organizes men, materials,
energy, and information on a scale unknown before and at an ever-
increasing speed. So does it disorganize societies and destroy their
knowledge bases elsewhere on a colossal scale with equal speed. It
has produced wealth and glitter for a few, and poverty, darkness, and
noise for the rest. Underlying both creation and destruction,
organization and disorganization, lies a common characteristic of
modern technology: violence. Modern technology is violent for all
(Raghuramaraju 2006:178179).
!Modern society fosters the notion that technology will provide solutions to just
about any problem. Indeed, the industrial ethic is based upon this assumption. But no
matter how fervently we believe in its power to improve our lives, technology simply
cannot solve the problem of consuming a resource like soil faster than we can generate it
(Montgomery 2012:6). Another resource that is limited, and yet is being consumed faster
than we can replace, if we can replace it, is oil. Fossil fuels form the backbone of
agriculture in the third quadrant as the following graph shows.
!24
! Fig 2. A comparison of energy flows in food (Ackerman-Leist and Madison 2013:l. 1072)
Oil is present in different forms. It fuels the machinery in fields and in the
transportation, it provides the raw material for the packaging, and more often than not, it is
used to produce our electricity with which we run the refrigerator and the microwave oven.
This predominance of fossil fuels has been enabled by the mechanization of agriculture.
Indeed, technology has helped to reduce the strain of farm work, and has allowed a small
farming population to feed the masses. However, machines have also led to many changes
for the worse.
Paul Roberts has identified the technology treadmill as one key problem
encountered by farmers around the world (2009:l.152). Garkovich (1995) also deals with
the treadmill phenomenon in her research of fourth quadrant farmers. New technology is
often expensive, and must be purchased through various loans and subsidies offered by the
government. The specialized nature of the technology and machines involved makes them
a sunken asset, something that can be paid off only through an increase in production,
although an increase in production does not necessarily lead to an increase in income. Rice
transplanters and Combine harvesters are two of the machines that are heavily used in
Japanese agriculture but at the same time are sunken assets. They can be used only for the
expressed purpose of planting and harvesting rice, respectively, and because every farmer
needs it at around the same time, it is near impossible to share. Maintenance of the
!25
machines, as well as upgrades are similarly expensive. The machinery allows the farmer to
increase her productivity, and more often than not, leads to an expansion of the area under
cultivation. However, the resulting increase in production may not translate into an
increase in income; prices may fall because of a supply surplus.
This vicious circle of ever-increasing amount of produce flooding the market is
behind many of the incongruities of the modern-day food supply, notes Roberts, pointing
to the multiple uses of corn that rose to utilize surplus corn. Furuno highlights the plight of
the farmer within this mechanization, observing that simply encouraging mechanization
without rethinking the fundamental principles of agriculture, while looking good on the
surface, is a sure recipe for a steady slide into poverty. I cannot help but conclude that this
is exactly the predicament that many farmers are in (Furuno 2011:178). Indeed, this is the
plight of many in the fourth quadrant, as the farmer tries to improve yields through
mechanization. Farming is a business where debt is a part of operational reality
(Garkovich, Bokemeier, and Foote 1995:132136). Montgomery also describes reliance on
technology as 'addictivetechnology and chemical based farming are mainly composed of
practices promoted by multinational corporations to increase the reliance on its
products' (Montgomery 2012:242).
!Labor
All the farmers in the Yasato region I interviewed possessed minimal machinery
by the standards of a conventional farm. Machines are considered more of a nuisance than
a necessity. They are too expensive to use on the hyakushos income. Machines are not a
must in a self-sufficient lifestyle, Kakei explains to me (Kakei 2013). He cites Gandhis
doctrine of bread-labor, the moral imperative that one must earn ones bread by the sweat
of ones browBodily labour is a duty imposed by nature on mankind. And one who eats
but does not do any manual work in effect steals food (Dasgupta 1996:36). The labor is
something he welcomes more than new machines, the machines which he feels exposes the
farmer to dangers never experienced before and reduces farming into small, easily
understandable steps, making it a dull and numbing repetitive business (Kakei and Shirato
2009:14) .
!26
Furuno is different from other farmers I interviewed in the sense that he is an
advocate of appropriate machinery in organic agriculture. Perhaps this is a position born of
necessity; unlike the other farmers I interviewed, his family has been involved in
agriculture for many generations. Thus, he has access to prime land, land that is flat and
easily accessible, and located close by. Even then, the total area of the land he farms is
around 3 hectares, not much when compared to the average large-scale farm in America.
He tells me that some work can only be done by a machine. He shows me the largest
machine he uses: a tractor to pull along a sub-soiler, an attachment that is basically two
long prongs mounted on a frame behind the tractor. This machine is key to growing the
second round of crops after the rice has been harvested. The sub-soiler manages to break
through the thick layer of soil that allows the paddy field to retain the water during the
rice-growing season. It also opens up deep furrows in the soil, allowing the water to
evaporate more quickly than it would have otherwise, so much so that just three days later,
the field was lined with long ridges (une), beds onto which the winter harvest of Chinese
cabbage were to be transplanted. It is the only way in which he can grow two crops on the
same piece of land, and yet it does not cost much. Machines can also allow a small farmer
to do so much more. The key, he says, is to create a technology that manages to reduce the
labor of the farmer at affordable prices (Furuno 2013). Most of the machines he uses have
small engines and are pushed along in the fields by hand, and Furuno is working with a
local company to design better small machinery.
Sakamoto is also a supporter of appropriate technology. He improvises a lot,
trying to make the best out of the trash that he occasionally finds, resulting in a very cost-
effective mechanization on his farm. Improvising has another benefit. Being a form of
problem-solving, it allows him to exercise his innovativeness. Benri sugiru, ima no nihon
shakai wa! (modern Japanese society is too convenient!) exclaims Sakamoto (Sakamoto
2013). Another key to success is not to rush things and to instead try things that are
realistic and achievable. Identifying the problem or need is one of the keys to success.
Instead of relying on market-made answers, its much better if you can rely on common
sense and careful observation. Although the resulting mix of energy sources and machines
may seem complicated when one considers how convenient market solutions are, but the
!27
payoffs include more redundancy, more control over energy decisions, and more fun and
education as the children start helping out.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!28
Chapter 3: Community !
The Village and The City
Souichi Yamashita is one of the most prolific farmer-writers of Japan. To date, he has
authored around 45 books, mostly dealing with agriculture (Bird 2013b). Yamashita details
how the rural areas are acting as a receptacle for those who have been used and then
discarded by the high-growth high-competition society that has characterized much of
Japans post-war growth. He uses figures from a 1994 census to illustrate his point
(Yamashita 1999). Of the nearly 36 thousand people who returned to agriculture, 32
thousand were aged 40 years and over. The village, forgotten for the 33 years of Japans
phenomenal growth, had been robbed of its vitality but was now acting to provide a place
for those deemed useless by the society they had worked so hard to create. He notes with
a sense of irony that when the economy falls apart, people will come back to the land. Our
job is to preserve these places. People need something to return to(Bird 2013b).
Yamashita provides us with a record of the rapid shift that Japan underwent post-war,
when the rising prospects of life in the city lured many of the young away from the rural
communities. Yamashita notes that the song Tokyo e ikou yo (Lets go to Tokyo;
interestingly, this song, released in 1955, was banned because it enticed the young
generation to go to Tokyo) by Fujio Maki marks the start of the mass exodus towards the
city centers. Five years later, the exodus would be exacerbated by the sending off of whole
groups of promising young children fresh out of junior high school, known in the local
parlance as golden eggs (kin no tamago), to earn money in Tokyo. The extent of the
outflow can be seen in the fact that many special trains were arranged for the expressed
purpose of ferrying these young hopefuls to the three mega-metropolitan areas of Tokyo,
Nagoya and Osaka. In the decade spanning from 1957 to 1966, close to 4 million people
moved out of the rural areas and into these urban areas, shifting the balance in such a way
that the three cities together were home to more than 45% of the Japanese population
(Yamashita 1999:1823). However, in the years to come, the myths that had made Japan
Inc. distinctive and envied started crumbling. The waves of globalization would hit hard,
making ideas like the convoy system , the common destiny company and the promise of
!29
lifetime employment impossible to implement (Yamashita 1999:32). This resulted in the
situation that Yamashita observed as noted earlier.
Recognition of the fact that agriculture is deeply connected to agriculture has provided
the impetus for some well-known community movements. Two prime examples are The
Ainou Movement Ainou Undou (based in Mie Prefecture) and the Reverence for Life
Movement (RLM) Inochi wo Mamoru Undou(based in Kumamoto Prefecture). The
Ainou Movement began in the aftermath of World War II as a way of disseminating
agricultural knowledge to help raise productivity, but gradually changed into a movement
calling for the creation of a more sustainable and harmonious society built around agrarian
villages. Started by a charismatic leader called Junichiro Kotani, the Ainou movement is
still in existence more than 50 years after its inception (Kotani 2004). The RLM was a movement that lasted from 1962 to 1980, and was started by a group of concerned doctors that called for a conceptual framework for health that encompassed healthcare, safe food and good eating practice, and agriculture (Takekuma-Katsumata 2011:xiv). It involved farmers in a movement that called for rural health. It calls for recognition that food is what our bodies are made of and through the recognition of this simple fact, to support organic methods of production. One of the leaders in this movement, Yoshitaka Takekuma notes that farmers are just as important as doctors; yet do not receive the same amount of recognition. Citing the notion of ishokudougen (a saying that implies that food and medicine have the same origins), he notes that eating good food is the best way we can ensure our health. He makes use of the concept of Food as Life (shoku wa inochi nari) to put this idea in more simpler terms (Takekuma 1983:174). Both of these movements place emphasis on the role that farming plays within the community, and worked to spread this fundamental recognition. And as we shall see in the next section, community is inseparable from the notion of food.
!Local/Transnational: Debates on Food Security and Food Sovereignty
Food security is a growing concern, both for the various bodies and entities
dealing with the problem of hunger in third-world countries and countries like Japan which
are dependent on imports for food. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of
the United Nations, food security at the individual, household, national, regional and
global level will be achieved when all people at all times have physical and economic
access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food
preferences for an active and healthy lifestyle (Schanbacher 2010:13). An important point
to be noted here is that the concept of food security does not include the need for self-
!30
sufficiency of a community. Instead, it concentrates on the acquirement of the greatest
amount of food at the least cost. To this end, policies which encourage trade relations in the
food sector are put in place. Japan is no stranger to this globalized market: it is the largest
importer of agricultural goods, with an import market estimated to be worth around 6
trillion in 2008 (MAFF 2009). On a calorie-based calculation, this means that 61% of the
food consumed in Japan produced elsewhere. Food here is divorced from the cultural
contexts in which it has traditionally existed, and is instead used as a tool for imposing
neoliberal policies. Lewellen notes that a great deal of anthropological data suggests that
such 'unimpeded neoliberal capitalism increases inequality, destroys indigenous cultures,
promotes rampant consumerism, commodifies everything, transfers wealth from the poor
to the rich, eviscerates the environment, and disempowers the weak while further
empowering the strong' (2002:192). Indeed, Schanbacher points out that the dominant food
security model guided by neoliberal economic theory leads to the global concentration of
agricultural sectors," leading to the destruction of peoples sovereignty over the
production, distribution, and consumption of the foods they desire and the livelihoods
associated with them(2010:105). The concentration of agricultural sectors also implies the
concentration of industrial and knowledge-based sectors in First-world countries, creating
a fundamental imbalance of power between the two because of the differences in the
currency value of the products of these sectors. The disparity in the value of currencies also
favors a move into the third sector. Many developed countries are using their superior
economic position to shift their centers of production to third-world countries and
implement capital-intensive agriculture. Lewellen observes that while small farmers may
be able to produce food at a more efficient rate, (e)fficiency in cropping is only one part of
the whole process, and the small farmer is at a disadvantage in every other
aspect(Lewellen 2002:226227) be it in processing, transport, access to markets,
distribution or loans. At the same time, Lewellen notes that such movements of
globalization and neoliberal capitalism do not go unchallenged (2002:192). In this case, the
challenge comes from local movements all over the world intent on securing their food
sovereignty. In order to provide an alternative to the neoliberal concept that is food
security, the concept of food sovereignty has been advocated by peasant groups across the
world. La Via Campesina (International Peasant Movement), the organization which is
!31
widely acknowledged to have consolidated the idea of food sovereignty, defines it as the
right of peoples, countries and state unions to define their agricultural and food policy
without the dumping of agricultural commodities into foreign countries. Food sovereignty
organizes food production and consumption according to the needs of local communities,
giving priority to production for local consumption (Schanbacher 2010:54). This
approach stands in stark contrast to the purely economic approach put forward by food
security, which creates the illusion of plenty by exploiting the availability of superior
economic resources to procure food. Instead, food sovereignty recognizes the societal
value that food production holds and emphasizes the role of the local community in food
production, processing and consumption. As a concrete step towards the achievement of
food sovereignty, the idea of localized production is often used, citing the fact that to the
productive, economic, and environmental benefits of small farm agriculture, we can add
the continuance of cultural traditions and the preservation of the rural way of life. If we are
truly concerned about rural peoples and ecosystems, then the preservation and promotion
of small, family farm agriculture is a crucial step we must take(Schanbacher 2010). Thus,
there is a concept of farming communities as not merely an economic entity but as a
powerful player in molding the idea of a community. This also meshes closely with the
idea of life environmentalism that has been put forward by Torigoe and Kada.
!Community and the Farmer
Perhaps one of the most interesting findings was the cosmopolitan nature of the
conception of community that the farmers had. Farmers have traditionally been viewed as
rooted to the local community (Lewellen 2002:223), yet the farmers I interviewed proved
otherwise. While their immediate surroundings are local, and the work they do is on the
local scale, their ideas and the communities are decidedly cosmopolitan or global.
Uehara for example, was drawn to the possibilities of agriculture in building up
and maintaining communities. One of the big topics in the 1970s and recently as well,
community-building or chiiki zukuri garnered the interest of many university study
groups. Uehara belonged to one such group in Waseda during university, and later went on
to study the same in graduate school (Uehara 2013). Through his research he was able to
meet the people who were involved in the so-called primary sector, agriculture and
!32
forestry. The people who were involved in production were all very independent and
skilled, and he was drawn to their way of life and philosophy. This would later provide him
with the motivation to see for himself the places where agrarian communities were
thriving: he decided to intern in an NGO that specialized in development aid for third-
world countries. Visiting Nepal and Bangladesh, he visited the agrarian communities there.
Yet he was surprised by what he found. The goals and aspirations of the villagers he
interacted with were strikingly similar to their First-world counterparts. Their definition of
the better life was defined by the acquisitions of cars and television sets, the new gadgets
and the fast food that were the symbols of the first world. The boundaries that he had in his
mind aligned along national borders faded away as he saw the glaring similarities in
outlook. The blessings and curses of modernity was something no longer confined to
within the first world nations but had transcended geographical boundaries.
Furuno talks about his experiences at a group set up for the expressed purpose of
creating a get-together for farmers in the Kyushu area (Kyushu hyakusho deai no kai) . He
remarks that there are two things essential for agriculture: soil and people (Furuno and
Sato 2012:37). Ideally, the farmers identity is formed through interaction with two groups
of people: People in the sense of consumers, who evaluate the product and then pay for it,
and people as fellow producers, who share philosophies and techniques. At the get-
together, Furuno recalls how lucky he was to meet celebrity farmers like Souichi
Yamashita and Une Yutaka (Bird 2013a). They were some of the big names in the
alternative agriculture movement, and Furuno felt that it was important to have such role-
models. At the same time, not all the farmers who came were using alternative methods
there were many conventional farmers as well. But Furuno says that he had much to learn
from them, in terms of finding solutions to the same problems and accumulating important
skills. It was also a good opportunity to hear voices from outside ones circles. Whether
alternative or not, all the farmers would gather together and share their experiences over
cups of sake and good food, and forget their solitary existences as a minor group in society.
Their common hardships and shared passion for farming brought them together. At the
same time, Furuno extended his reach beyond Japan, transmitting the knowledge he had
acquired to rice-growing regions in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the
Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam in an effort to introduce the method (Japan
!33
Information Network 2002). Here too, he declared that whatever the nationality, the fellow
farmer would always be a friend. His concept of community is truly transnational. The
Iidas are also well-travelled. Koji Iida had spent around five years, travelling through
various countries in Latin America and Asia. The friends he made along the way still visit
them on their farm in Yasato (Iida 2013).
!The State and the Farmer
Mi no take ni atta seikatsu, is a phrase that roughly translates as a life lived in a
manner befitting of ones stature. Sakamoto used this phrase often to describe his and his
familys approach to life. The first three words mi no take refers to ones stature, and is
used in a humble manner, to suggest that the speaker is not worthy of too much. The latter
part, ni atta seikatsu completes the sentence, and means a life adjusted to. This means
that one is not overreaching for goods or lifestyles beyond ones means, thus preventing
any unnecessary strain or pressure to keep achieving more. Contrary to the popular image
of agriculture as being protected by subsidies from the government, all of the farmers I
interviewed from the Yasato region have no debt; they take no loans and subsidies issued
by the government. All of them managed to procure enough money to start off, and then
keep things as simple as possible, and try their best to keep within their own limits. The
small scale of the fields is also not conducive to the increase of production through
machines. Sakamoto observes that this is a powerful fact that allows the hyakusho to enjoy
farming (Sakamoto 2013). Agriculture is fun when one can do as one pleases, enjoyable to
an unsuspected point. When he would watch his parents at work, his attention was drawn
to the unpleasant sides of this vocation (taihen na bubun). Sakamotos parents are both
farmers, and he recounts how his father would put in long hours in the field and at work,
out of proportion to his earnings. Feeling that his father was somehow mistaken, he
promised himself that he would find a way to get more money without working as hard.
But strangely, once he started farming, he started understanding that there was little
distinction between play and work. More often than not, work for the organic farmer is the
same as leisure. It is in toil that they find pleasure, something that is hard to understand,
especially for children.
!34
He does not use any hojokin, subsidies or grants provided by the government
because it does not fit in with their self-sufficient lifestyle. Everything has to be black and
white, everything has to be accounted and paid for. He told me of the time when he built
the structure that houses his pigs.While he had managed to get hold of the roofing and
wood required to make the framework of the building, he still needed some concrete for
the foundations. When he tried applying for the hojokin in order to pay for the concrete
only, he was denied because he was not employing specialists who would be able to
compose the required documents. Figuring it was not worth the hassle, he borrowed the
help of his family and built the shed up from scratch according to his own preferences.
In his book, Rural Society in Japan (1980), Tadashi Fukutake provides a
glimpse into the lives of farmers in Japan in pre- and post-war Japan, and the role the state
played in their lives. Through his work, we see what farmers expected, and more
importantly, what was expected of farmers. Fukutake notes the clear intertwining of the
agricultural classes and the ruling class. There is a sense here of the state rewarding the
farmers and peasants who were instrumental post-war in the production of enough food to
feed the masses, not through economic incentives or better living standards, but instead by
extolling the virtues of agriculture (Fukutake 1980:17), claiming that it was the
foundation of state and society (1980:17). It was the ideology of the imperial state which
provided the justification for the existence of farmers, Fukutake explains, and with Japans
loss in the Second World War, the imperial state took along with it the strong sense of
purpose that had guided the peasantry up till then (1980:22). This meant that the rationale
which justified the poor compensation received from farming in comparison with other
professions because it was a noble calling could no longer be supported by the state, and
that the rapid spread of capitalist principles of production mean that farming is now
thought of as an enterprise that should show a profit (Fukutake 1980:202). This
conception has been transcended somewhat by the existence of small farmers who eschew
ties with both the state and unfettered capitalism in evaluating the meaning of their work.
!
Knowledge
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In Ueharas orchard, we start pruning off dead branches.The trees act as living
records: each cut the tree receives, each typhoon it survives, each year of high
temperatures: all influence the growth of the tree and are therein recorded. This is what
makes fruit growing tricky, the fact that the time-spans involved are so long. The trees we
were pruning on that day were some he had been entrusted with by a more elder farmer
who had retired. He points out some of the branches and tells me how he does not agree
with some of the pruning work of his predecessor, while acknowledging that it was the
way that everybody normally did it (minna ga futsuu ni yatteiru). Based on knowledge that
he has learnt from some biology textbooks on plant development and physiology, he
modifies the advice of his neighbors and prunes the branches according to his own system.
The process will be gradual and it will be years before the trees start assuming the shape he
is envisioning. When I ask him if there are any traditional pruning methods that have been
handed down, he tells me that they exist, but that he prefers to work out a system that he
truly understands instead of doing 'what everyone else is doing' (Uehara 2013). On the
lowest part of the orchard, I find a tree with unfamiliar leaves. It turns out to be an avocado
plant, something that he is experimenting because he hopes to grow different varieties of
fruit in the future. This approach to farming is what Montgomery advocates in order to
change agriculture. He calls for farming techniques which do not rely on the
implementation of a standardized model or system but rather the creation of farming
systems which are optimal for the local conditions, something which he terms farming
with brains rather than by habit or convenience (Montgomery 2012:241).
For the more than 35 years that Furuno has been farming, he has been
experimenting constantly in order to deal with problems that crop up with the method of
farming that uses ducks. Because he farms using knowledge that he finds for himself, he is
constantly using a trial-and-error method. The knowledge he has managed to accumulate,
however, is formidable and has even enabled him to earn a doctorate degree in 2007
through a dissertation he worked on for more than two years, writing in the little time he
had to spare after working in the fields. He laments the current situation in education,
where the gain of agricultural science is the loss of agricultural communities (nouga
sakaete nougyou horobu) . He says that those who receive a college degree education in
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agricultural science should be out in the fields helping to find new knowledge to help
sustain farming communities, instead of working in cities. Sadly, this is not the case.
Kakei feels a need for a fundamental rethink of the education system and the
information distribution system to ensure that it does not favor the ethics and principles of
an industrial society, but instead envisions a less exploitative and more sustainable society
(Kakei 2013). The economist Jeffrey Sachs observes that, Taking moral responsibility for
the future, accepting the reality that our actions today will determine the fates of
generations to live, is daunting enough. Taking practical responsibility is equally
difficult(Sachs 2011:177). Kakei felt that practicing a morally responsible agriculture
would be very difficult, but after experiencing the farming life, the life of the hyakusho for
himself, he found out very quickly that the agricultural way of life was prosperous,
healthy and fun. He had assumed that the economic poverty and manual labor he
associated with the farming life would be too much for him to bear. The dark images he
and his generation had associated with farming were the result of a journalism that was
financed by the growing industries in the post-war years and a warped education that
prepared the numerous workers needed to fuel Japans miraculous industrialization (Kakei
and Shirato 2009:89)
Indeed, there exist a fundamental imbalance in the treatment accorded to the
knowledge that is produced in institutions and the knowledge that is gained over decades
of experimentation by farmers and passed down as traditional wisdom. Recalling his years
as an undergraduate and graduate student, Uehara notes that the experts in the community-
building study group he studied under relied on the advice of doctors and politicians, and
bureaucrats well-versed in policies. Uehara felt a fundamental discord: The people who
were being asked to advise on the creation and maintenance of communities were people
far removed from the everyday community, the lived community. The problems mentioned
by the study group and the answers formed were predictable as well. The problem was
always people: that there were not enough of them. To somehow bring people back to the
village, the study group would resort to pseudo-colonial approaches: most notably the
promotion of tourism to the village. Bringing in industries was also a popular solution to
the problem of the thinning village population. The failings common to these approaches
was and is the fact that they have little use for the tremendous amount of knowledge that
!37
the local community members possess, because it fails to fit into their idea of community.
The education system is of little help either; it gears children towards a life in the city and
based around the service and industrial sector. Little in the curriculum legitimizes the
knowledge of the villagers, and it is only natural that young people seek employment
elsewhere, usually in nearby cities. Simply because the younger generation has not learnt
of the skills to maintain an agrarian community, the community is changed into an entity
peripheral to the city, forced into a crude imitation of the city and judged on how well it
can achieve this goal. Kakei laments this situation, saying that those who have had first-
hand experience of a farmers life end up losing sight of the meaning of life, so how can
we expect children who have been brought up in a society where irresponsible adults
choose to have material wealth over all else to understand what it is that allows them to
live? In our modern times, where food and clothing can be found on supermarket stores,
the best way to get access to these goods is by dutifully following orders (Kakei and
Shirato 2009:25). A move into the first quadrant will not be possible without the support of
society as a whole, and knowledge dissemination is thought to play a large part in this
movement.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Chapter 4: Visibility !
Food and Images
Japans traditional cuisine washoku was added to UNESCOs Intangible Cultural
Heritage list late in 2013 (Japanese Cuisine Added to UNESCO Intangible Heritage List
2013). The idea of washoku encompasses so many different philosophies, like that of
seasonality, sparseness and making do with what one has; it is as rich in meaning as it is
pleasing to the eye. Yet all too often, the message implied within this cuisine is studiously
ignored. Most of the ingredients used to create a washoku dish come from abroad,
vegetables and fruit available year round allow for consumers to disregard seasonality, and
sparseness of food is something that is unthinkable. What remains is an imitation of
washoku, something fit for the showcases in the museum to which this cultural heritage is
increasingly in danger of being relegated to:
It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a
question of substituting the signs of the real for the realan operation of deterring every
real process via its operational double, a programmatic, metastable, perfectly descriptive
machine that offers all the signs of the real and short-circuits all its
vicissitudes (Baudrillard and Glaser 1994:2)
In an eerie echo of this situation, food has become mystical for many in the first
world. It has been unceremoniously removed from the position of the main concern of
households and instead has been shunted into the corner, viewed as no more than a
necessary burden. In order to free up more of the family budget to spend on other pursuits,
food has been relegated down the list. People are increasingly finding recourse to fast food,
with less and less people spending time in the kitchen. The MAFF Annual Report on Food,
Agriculture and Rural Areas (FY2012) notes, 'the share of overall food expenditure has
declined for meat and vegetables while increasing for cooked food and oils/fats/
condiments'. Other figures, mainly those pointing to the gradual decline in couple-and-
child households, suggest that the trend is likely to continue, with the externalization of the
Japanese diet projected to grow further. The value of the sales of the home-meal
replacement industry has more than doubled in the past twenty years, going from a net
worth of 2.3 trillion in 1990 to 5.8 trillion in 2011, and is expected to keep rising (MAFF
!39
2012). The organic farmers stand to lose the most from this trend, since the majority of
their consumers are people who subscribe to get boxes of fresh produce delivered every
week, in a system that is now famous as the Teikei system. The Japanese predecessor of
the CSA (community-supported agriculture) set-up connects the farmer to the consumer
and is one of the ways in which farmers can get higher renumeration for their products. It
also allows them to get recognition for their organic products without having to get JAS
certification. It is predicated, however, on the consumer choosing to cook, instead of
ordering pre-cooked food. A general shift in society towards ready-made foods hurts the
prospects of organic farmers who hope to make a living solely out of selling farm produce.
Yet it is not only the organic farmer who suffers. Michael Pollan records the ill-effects of
this trend away from preparing ones own food for society in general in his book Cooked:
A Natural History of Transformation (2013). The pre-packaged foods that dominate First
World markets cause problems, he claims, for the health of our bodies, our families, our
communities, and our land but also more importantly, it disrupts our sense of how our
eating connects us to the world (Pollan 2013). He elaborates that the growing distance
from any direct, physical engagement with the processes by which the raw stuff of nature
gets transformed into a cooked meal is chaining our understanding of what food is,' usually
for the worse (2013:9). The ability of the processed foods industry to provide us with
neatly packaged food has reduced i t to just another commodity, an
abstraction(2013:9).This abstraction of the many complex processes that gets food on the
table pushes us further and further into a vacuum with no place for physical engagement or
the proper appreciation of the value of the things that keep us functioning. Indeed, as
Pollan wryly observes, we end up trying to nourish ourselves on images (2013:10) . And
images dominate the shelves of the modern grocery store or conbini creating a simplistic
facade where nothing is really connected (Iwasaki 2013:28). Indeed, a quick trip to the
grocery store will allay fears of any immediate crisis (Montgomery 2012:2; Roberts
2009:298) for those living in developed nations, simply because so much of the food is
processed .
Without a television at home, Sakamoto is astounded by the speed of the
television commercials he sees whenever he happens to be in town. He learnt an important
message though: that people are buying images and stories (Michaels 2011:3).
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Understanding that making good agricultural produce is only part of the story, with the
ability to sell making up the rest is a realization that is essential to market ones product.
People must be convinced of certain narratives and images in order to buy something.
Once a narrative is accepted, there are no questions asked, even questions regarding
authenticity or intrinsic value. It is not enough, Sakamoto observes, to produce the
authentic. One must market it as such. People can be convinced that anything is good for
them. That is how things like fizzy drinks, fast food and pesticides are soldthe
consumers are taught that these products will somehow heighten the quality of their lives.
The creators of the authentic thus have their work cut out; they must educate t
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