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
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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
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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 10 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 12 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 13 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 35 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 36 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.
38 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 neat l y packaged food has reduced i t t o j ust anot her commodi t y, 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). 40 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 their customers and customers-to-be to be consumers about the value and meaning of the authentic: without any such effort, the good intentions and hard efforts of the farmers will be wasted. One of the ways in which farmers made their food chain more transparent was through the sharing of information through newsletters (tsuushin) they pack with their produce or information that is posted on their websites (see appendix). These sources of information help convey the various undertakings by the producer to the consumer, involving both in a highly personal relationship that breaks the barriers found in the industrial system.
Food and Safety Safety is one of the key derivatives of visibility, and perhaps the biggest reason for the consumer to buy organic is the safety that it implies and promises. Two of the most prominent people in the organic movement of Japan wrote books dealing with the problem of pesticides. Giryo Yanase was a medical practitioner in Nara Prefecture and one of the first people to notice and record the ill-effects of pesticides in a book that came out in 1961 (Takekuma-Katsumata 2011:112) He was followed by Sawako Ariyoshi, a prominent writer who penned the seminal Fukugouosen(Multiple Pollution), a book that has been hailed as the Silent Spring of Japan. Their efforts raised awareness about the need for safer foods, and organics rose to fill the need. Indeed, the defining characteristics of Organics are often cited as safe and ability to have peace of mind (anzen anshin). One of Ueharas aims is to grow fruits that are safe to eat, even the skin (Kawa made tabereru mono wo tsukuritai). Citrus plants and other fruits require intensive pesticide use to cater 41 to a notoriously picky Japanese consumer base. Blemishes appear wherever insects pierce the skin in order to get at the sweet nectar within; and blemishes on the skin lead to a fall in the value of the fruit as a product.Fruits are also treated post-harvest to prevent damage while shipping. The resulting mix of toxic chemicals and wax on the surface of the fruits may be harmful to the consumers. Although this means that he is able to harvest and sell less of the fruit, he is happy with the compromise because safety of the food (shoku no anzen) is the most important quality for him. On Sakamotos farm, the pigsties are spacious and the floors covered with a thick layer of sawdust. New-born piglets wriggle through holes in the fences and run about, poking their inquisitive noses into the crates and cardboard boxes to inspect the contents. Such scenes are unimaginable on an efficient modern day pig-farm, with space being used sparingly, and pigs confined. The upside of allowing the pigs space to move about makes itself apparent in the fact that Sakamoto uses no drugs and antibiotics on his farm. Instead of supporting farmers who make healthy and safe food, we often separate the two, and leave our personal health in the doctors hands. However, citing the principle of ishokudougen, Souichi Yamashita points out the iatrogenics of medicine, suggesting that as medicine progresses, the human body regresses (Yamashita 1999:94). Iatrogenics (literally, caused by the healer) implies causing harm while one intervenes to try to help (Taleb 2013:l. 2140). It refers to unintended side-effects that are caused when one works on the basis of a limited understanding. Yamashita talks about the principle and laments how society ends up rewarding the medical practitioner for the excessive use of antibiotics, causing a weakening of the human body, while failing to support the farmer who is the one who has the potential to provide society with the safe food that is a key to good health. When talking about food safety, perhaps the biggest challenge that the organic farmer must face is the after-effects of the nuclear contamination in the aftermath of the 3.11 disaster. Safety started to be measured in Becquerels, the unit denoting radioactivity, and many farmers were dealt a heavy blow. Ujita for example, was enjoying an increase in customers in the decade leading up to 2011 but began to lose many customers, particularly restaurants, after news of possible contamination spread. Ujita said, sekkyokuteki ni jibun no mono wo urenaijishin wo motenai (It is hard to try to sell your products; even you 42 yourself are not sure of whether the food is safe or not) (Ujita 2013). The only way to regain legitimacy is through the use of expensive tests that measure the amount of radiation present; even then, success is not guaranteed. At Sakamotos home, I was starting my interview after a long day of work. As we moved onto some eggplant tempura and katsuo no tataki (lightly roasted bonito), the talk shifted to the after-effects of the Fukushima disaster. I hope you dont mind eating fish, given the current situation (TEPCO dumping radioactive waste-water into the sea).I received this as a gift but I didnt want my children to eat it because it may contain some levels of radioactivity. I think it is fine but I dont want to take any chances; ever since 3.11, we havent eaten much fish. I meditated on the glistening piece of fish caught between my chopsticks. I murmured my thanks (saying itadakimasu) before taking my first bite. Although Sakamoto and his family do not eat fish since the accident, he does not know for sure if it is necessary to go to such lengths. After all, it is how each person decides to interpret the information that is at their disposal that determines how they act. The damage at Fukushima nuclear power-plant after 3.11 was unprecedented, and beyond prediction (souteigai). This is a manifestation of the fact that man-made complex systems tend to develop cascades and runaway chains of reactions that decrease, even eliminate, predictability and cause outsized events. So the modern world may be increasing in technological knowledge, but, paradoxically, it is making things a lot more unpredictable (Taleb 2013:l. 398). Sadly, it is the farmer who is forced to remembershe cannot forget about Fukushima and move on, oblivious to its aftermath. Long after the headlines have died down and have moved onto more fresh and appealing stories, little changes the reality on the ground. Far from the lens of the media, reports are trickling out of Fukushima. Word of malformations, cancers and plant worker deaths is spread along social networking services, although there is no way to conclusively prove the effects of radiation. Sakamoto paints a picture of a society that is being effortlessly duped into acting as the state wishes it to, a society that believes that what you see is all there is. All this, he says, is because of a lack of transparency and the effort to find the truth. One of the greatest signs of the transparency that is present in organic agriculture is that the daily food tastes good (Hibi no gohan ga oishii). Iida Kanako explains, saying that she is made very aware of the fact that they are living within an intricate matrix 43 through which they are connected to other living organisms, and that recognizing this truth is what makes the food worth savoring (Iida 2011:127).
Transparent Energy Energy is one of the key areas that needs to be addressed in order to create a peaceful society. Finding alternative means of meeting ones energy needs is something that is a movement of peace and will potentially change Japan. Seeking independence from the grid is then, a form of declaration of a lifestyle, a statement committed to peace. Sakamoto is interested in providing for his familys energy needs with as little dependence on conventional sources of energy (electricity and gas) as possible. I think that trying to solve energy problems is a way of trying to bring peace to our world.Peace cannot be a viable concept unless energy problems are resolved (Sakamoto 2013). At first glance, his car is an ordinary Toyota minivan, but a whiff of the fumes from the exhaust suggests that something is different. The fumes smell decidedly like tempura, the Japanese delicacy. Sakamoto had modified the engine to run on leftover cooking oil, a resource that he found in abundance and free of cost in the local restaurants. A little surfing on the internet and some minor modifications was all it took. I would also later look at his set-up for filtering oil: it was made of two oil drums and some 18-liter tin cans (called ittokan) stacked up and connected with a garden hose to each other. He found pride in the fact that he had built everything from scratch. Their kitchen was also interesting, with a conventional gas stove inside and a rocket stove outside.According to Wikipedia, A rocket stove achieves efficient combustion of the fuel at a high temperature by ensuring a good air draft into the fire, controlled use of fuel, complete combustion of volatiles, and efficient use of the resultant heat. It has been used for cooking purposes in many energy poor locales (notably Rwandan refugee camps) as well as for space and water heating (Rocket Stove 2013). Sakamoto tells me how they usually cook using the rocket stove, with the gas stove inside for days when they feel they do not have the energy to fire up the rocket stove, or if it is raining. The extreme efficiency of this stove means that fuel consumption is cut in half, with a few branches of wood sufficient to cook rice for one meal. The bath too, made use of wood-fire to be heated up. Technology that managed to fit into ones lifestyle was the most likely to be adopted and used. It all comes down to how practical the technology is. 44 It is more likely to be implemented if it can be fitted into ones lifestyle, says Sakamoto, as he describes the chemistry behind what he is doing. Sakamotos farm is also a testament to the sheer waste of energy in the food supply chain. As noted in an earlier section, Sakamoto feeds food waste to his pigs. All the kilocalories, the food miles, the virtual water and the farmers efforts find themselves in a pigs feeding trough, or worse still, in a landfill. Agriculture and energy production are connected in more ways than one may think, and the most obvious connection is that agriculture is energy production. It is this understanding of agriculture that has led the concept of rationality according to conventional agriculture to be questioned in recent years, with proponents of alternative forms of agriculture pointing out that the modernization of agriculture has been accompanied by the loss of rationality of agriculture as an industry for creating energy (Kakei 2009:15). The basic formula of capturing and converting the energy of the sun into a form of energy consumable by humans, thus leading to an increase in the overall amount of calories available, has been forgotten. It has been replaced by a system which relies on the massive energy inputs through the use of fossil fuels in different forms, so much so that modern agriculture expends more energy than it is able to create (Ackerman-Leist and Madison 2013:l.980). On the other hand, traditional approaches, and more recently agroecology, manages to lead to a net gain in energy (through the capture of solar energy) even if immediate crop production may be less than that of its modern counterparts, which is what production should aim for (Kakei 2009:17-18). Productivity and our definition of it should be looked at carefully, Kakei argues, if we are to make the right decisions about agriculture.
45
Chapter 5: Complexity
'Transforming food production into something more sustainable isnt simply a matter of exchanging one set of inputs for another or finding some new technology, but of developing a new way to think about food and food production. And given the political and intellectual inertia behind the existing system, what is becoming clearer all the time is that the battle over the next food economy will be as much about ideas as economics, and that the route to a truly sustainable food system isnt likely to be the path of least resistance' (Roberts 2009:272).
Simplified Agriculture Procrustes was an inn-keeper in Greek mythology who, in order to make his guests fit in his special bed, would cut the limbs of those who were too tall and stretched out those who were too short. In a similar manner, Taleb observes that treating a living biological system, in this case agriculture, as 'a simple machine is a kind of simplification 46 or approximation or reduction that is exactly like a Procrustean bed(Taleb 2013:l.1629). Conventional Agriculture (kankou nouhou), or modernized agriculture (kindai nouhou) is premised on the notion of efficiency , and seeks success in making agriculture more 'rational' and practiced along industrial principles(Wiebe et al. 2010:91) by reducing complexities in the system. Nature was something to be controlled and subdued in order to make the production process more streamlined and efficient. This was made possible through the production and use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, a high level of mechanization, and manufacture of seeds which allowed for monocultures to occupy much of agricultural land. The enormous success of the adoption of conventional agriculture is apparent from the fact that more than 99% of land in Japan is cultivated along its principles . One of the most famous organic farmers in Japan, Yoshinori Kaneko has put the town of Ogawa in Saitama prefecture on the map for the large number of organic farmers there. He describes Japanese agriculture in the 1970s as importing all of the American ideals of chemical agriculture in its bid to modernize (Colquhoun and ten Bosch, 2013 Food Matters).Before World War II, Japan had always been organic. After Japan lost the war, the country was torn and poor. The Japanese lost hope in themselves and looked to America for answers. They were sold on chemical farming methods to increase yields and adopted an American way of eating. Paul Roberts provides a vivid description of these industrialized methods in his book 'The End of Food. Under an industrial ethic, agriculture is run just like any other manufacturing business. Raw materials such as No.2 yellow corn or BSCB (boneless, skinless chicken breasts) are now handled like any other commodity: produced wherever costs are lowest, shipped to wherever demand is highest, and managed via the same contracts, futures and other instruments used for timber, or tin, or iron ore To an important degree, the success of the modern food sector has been its ability to make food behave like any other consumer product (Roberts 2009:l.126). Agricultural products that are no different from other consumer products lend themselves quite well to global trading, and this has fed into an increasingly powerful cycle: 'the global market and foreign agroindustrial control of commercial cropping has sped up two processes that have been going on for a long time: mechanization and rationalization (Lewellen 2002:227).But as in Procrustes' bed, something had to be sacrificed; and these sacrifices are looking less and less appealing. 'The world environment is paying a high price for the system of intensive 47 agriculture now widely adopted across the world. Modernization and development have resulted in increasing homogenization of both the natural and the cultural environments. Diverse and complex ecosystems are converted into simple ones through monoculture, with an associated loss of habitat and extinction of species' (Sutton and Anderson 2004:291).
Antifragility Nassim Nicholas Taleb, one of the foremost thinkers of our times, proposes the use of the concept of antifragility in understanding and dealing with risks made complicated by the unpredictability of nature. Antifragile entities benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty (Taleb 2013:l. 331). He explains how this property is possessed by everything that has evolved with time. Most importantly, antifragility determines the boundary between what is living and organic (or complex), say, the human body, and what is inert, say, a physical object (2013:l. 339). One of the best ways to manage risk, therefore, is to become antifragile and embrace the complexity within the system. One good example of antifragility in organic farming systems is provided by Furuno. Since his farming system depends on a biological agent, the duck, for pest control within his fields, his rice crops are resistant to the infestations of leafhoppers (unka) ( insects belonging to the Cicadellidae family) which are blown in from China. The ducks simply eat them up, preventing their spread. In comparison, the paddy fields around Furunos have tell-tale brown patches of shriveled-up rice plants: the leafhoppers are notorious for the speed with which they decimate crops almost ready for harvest within a matter of days. The only way in which conventional farmers can deal with this problem however, is through more chemical spraying, and even that is not effective at times because the hoppers are often resistant to chemicals because of previous exposure in China. Uehara's farm is located in Ehime Prefecture, towards the south-western end of the island of Shikoku. Uehara shows me around his different pieces of land. He explains to me that land in these areas is owned in patches located on different slopes as a way of 48 distributing risk. And the risks are very real; typhoons which blow in from down south in summer and autumn often bring the seawater onshore and up the slopes, leading the trees to wither from the increase in salinity, and the strong winds may break branches and drop fruit. And then there are the infestations of brown marmorated stink bugs(kusakamemushi), insects which pierce the skin of the citrus fruits, rendering them inedible. The orchards here have been in existence since the Muromachi era (spanning from the 13 th to the 15 th centuries), and are situated on the steep and abrupt slopes that rise up from the Uwa sea. Carved into the concave sides of the low hills are narrow terraces bolstered with large blocks of local stone. Where the gradient is high, the terraces are no more than 3 meters wide, space enough for a single row of trees; the gentler slopes closer to the sea allow for more trees to be planted. Here again, the ancestors have left behind a landscape greatly altered that allows future generations to farm. Uehara remarked that they must have done it by hand, and that it was humbling just to see what their perseverance had managed to achieve. Armed with a pair of gardening scissors, I accompany Uehara as he heads to his largest orchard in order to prune his trees. As we look downwards from the asphalt road that marks the start of the land, Uehara points out the various types of citrus he has planted. This again is another risk management strategy, a way of ensuring that not all of his crop is damaged in a storm. Antifragility is not a new concept, but it is a new way of looking at history. One of the best examples of an antifragile, and therefore sustainable, society is Edo Period Japan. Described by Brown as one of the most sustainable forms of human society, The Edo period in Japan refers to the more than two-and-a-half centuries(1603-1867) of rule by the Tokugawa shogunate. Although on the brink of environmental disaster in 1603, the same land was populated by more than double the population by the time the era was replaced by Imperial rule. Azby Brown concedes that although technological advances and government policies may have contributed to this possibly unparalleled feat, more than anything else, this success was due to a pervasive mentality that propelled all of the other mechanisms of improvement. This mentality drew on an understanding of the functioning and inherent limits of natural systems. It encouraged humility, considered waste taboo, suggested cooperative solutions, and found meaning and satisfaction in a beautiful life in which the individual took just enough from the world and not more (Brown 2009:10).This 49 philosophy was a keystone in the Edo period mentality, and is something that we can make use of to make our present-day societies more antifragile. The noted Japanese biologist Akira Miyawaki also concurs, pointing out that pre-modern Japan is one of the few examples of a civilization that has successfully avoided any examples of environmental degradation or destruction through human activities, a success that he attributes to the practice of coexisting with forests and from the way people have been supported by their local forests (Miyawaki and Box 2006:62). The continued existence of chinju-no-mori (forests that surround a Shinto shrine) that dot the Japanese landscape is testimony to the fact that forests were and are still held sacred, even symbolizing the traditional Japanese landscape.
Multifunctionality and Specialization One of the reasons that Kimura mentioned when talking about why he decided to settle in Yasato was that it reminded him of the landscape he saw in his youth, when he went to visit his relatives (Kimura 2013). The landscape of Yasato is dominated by gently sloping hills covered with wild tree growth that is evocative of the image of the furusato, the homeland (Miyawaki and Box 2006:63). Indeed, many of those interviewed referred to the satoyama landscape as a key motivating factor. Agriculture, then, can be understood in terms that go beyond the simplistic notion of agriculture as a way of producing food. Besides producing food and fiber, agriculture creates joint benefits such as landscapes, biodiversity, cultural heritage and viable rural communities. Such non-food outputs are the roots of multifunctionality, and such benefits are beyond the private domainthey are important features from agriculture to sustain the rural countryside (Brouwer 2004:1).The prominent ecologist Akira Miyawaki explains the different benefits that we are getting from agriculture. Healthy ecosystems support many organisms, including many we do not see, such as decomposer microbes in the soil. Among other benefits to humans, healthy ecosystems provide food and other materials, cleanse and manage water, buffer climatic extremes, and foster aesthetic values, Co-existing with nature requires awareness of these valuable ecosystem services 50 (Miyawaki and Box 2006:212).
Other positive multifunctions performed by agriculture include a reduction of pressures on urban areas, reduced pollution, congestion, crime and unhygienic living conditions (Brouwer 2004:302). It is worth noting the contributions that a sustainable form of agriculture makes, and take it into account when trying to gauge the value of agriculture instead of relying on the simplistic yardstick of production in monetary values. Indeed, a simplistic concentration on quantities produced leads to agricultural methods which are located squarely in the third quadrant. Here, specialization is more in demand than multifunctionality, for the simple reason that it leads to a greater economic reward in the short term. Specialization is a strategy that allows farmers to buy only certain kinds of equipment and refine their knowledge in one area. It is a strategy that can be profitable7 (Garkovich 1995:140). Specialization of this type is agriculture as business, and is in sharp contrast to agriculture as a way of life (hyakusho gurashi). Pollan remarks on the shortcomings of specialization. Specialization is undeniably a powerful social and economic force. And yet it is also debilitating. It breeds helplessness, dependence, and ignorance, and, eventually, it undermines any sense of responsibility (Pollan 2013:19).
The JAS Mark The Organics Promotion Law (Yuuki Nougyou Suishin Hou) was passed on 89,889 ha December 2006, and with it began the implementation of the JAS Organics Mark. Based on extensive research of laws concerning organics in other countries, notably the U.S and the E.U, and conforms to the recommendations of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, one of the leading authorities on consumer protection and international agricultural trade. Until 2000, there was no legal definition of organic products in Japan: observance of the 1992 Guidelines on Sustainable Agriculture issued by the MAFF was voluntary and independent organic certification was not required. It is worth clarifying that thatYuuki Shokuhin, the equivalent of organic food in Japanese, means a food product that contains low or no chemicals added in the production process, and thus it is not limited to organically grown and processed products but can also include other categories of products (Morgera, Caro, and Duran 2012:250). These other categories refer to 51 differences in the level of chemical pesticides and/or fertilizers employed: if they are used within the prescribed amounts, they can qualify for organics status. Although it worked to help create a system that provided certified and trustworthy organic products, it led to a highly regulated market, with a lot of paperwork involved for any farmer interested in going through the certification process. In addition, the certification process was not a one-time event; it required annual updates and the submission of detailed plans regarding information such as crops to be grown and seeds used. In short, it reduced organic agriculture to a bureaucratic process: JAS is limited to the production aspects of organic farming, and is thus unable to capture its essence. This was fiercely opposed by farmers like Kakei, who asserted that organic agriculture was something much more, and that the JAS did not question the geography of the farm, making it possible for foreign grown organics to come into Japan. As of April 2013, more than 1,768,033 ha of land cultivated under JAS standards was in foreign countries, with around 80% of the certified land classified as orchards. In comparison, a mere 9,889 ha of land within Japan was certified, with 50% of the certified land listed as vegetables and other annuals. There are currently around 4000 households who have JAS certification, while around 8000 households claim that they are using agricultural practices, bringing the total number of organic farmers to 12,000 in total. This number means that people who are involved in organic agriculture are 0.47% of the total number of households involved in agriculture (Nishio 2011).The total amount of food that they produce is around 0.35% of the total product of Japan. The JAS mark is ultimately a symbol of trust, one which many opt to bypass by reaching out directly to their own customers. But it is not the organic farmers who are doing something wrong, argues Uehara. The onus of proving ones credentials should fall on those who are sacrificing future food sovereignty and endangering the health of the ecosystems, the consumers, and the producers. It should be the conventional farmers who undergo certification, with proper indication of what pesticides, what fertilizers and what chemical additives go into the process of creating the product. The only problem, he notes wryly, is that he is in the minority 1% speaking out against the majority, the rest of the conventional farmers.
52 Chapter 6: Why Farm?
The previous sections have looked at the various arguments surrounding sustainable agriculture and conventional agriculture, drawing on insights of the farmers to help explain the various aspects of what a more sustainable form of agriculture will look like. The following sections will look at the hyakusho themselves and explore what motivates them, and what they think the ideal society should look like.
Motivation Two of humanitys greatest sages, Buddha in the Eastern tradition and Aristotle in the Western tradition, counseled us wisely about humanitys innate tendency to chase transient illusions rather than to keep our minds focused on deeper, long-term sources of well- being. Both urged us to keep a middle path, to cultivate moderation and virtue in our personal behavior and attitudes despite the allures of extremes (Sachs 2011:9)
In practice, that is to say, in everyday life, then, our ethical abilities bid us to address those problems we can impact with decisions made in our personal lives. ...Doing nothing is not really an option, since this choice effectively answers the question with the narrowness of an egotistical "I am going to care only about myself" (Waldau 2013:305). Small-scale farming in the present day and age presents a financial problem to the hyakusho. Since earning enough through agriculture is often not realistic, many hyakusho rely on additional sources of income. Uehara for instance, is a certified architect, a columnist and illustrator. Sugiyama often assists his neighbors in house-building, earning much-needed cash (Sugiyama 2013). Sometimes, their wives work outside the farm. IIda Kojis wife Kanako is an artisan working with ceramics, while Ueharas wife Wakana is skilled in languages and does freelance translation work. Kakei notes that there is no shame in having a job other than agriculture; it is more vital that newcomers increase, and 53 views the governments goal of fostering more full-time farmers as being disingenuous. But why then, In the face of such financial difficulties, do the farmers persist? Sakamoto admits that farming isnt worth the effort when calculated in monetary terms (Wari ni awanai). But, he goes on to explain, this is exactly what one is freed from through working on the farm, the need to calculate everything by how much money it makes. Farm work for many of the farmers I interviewed represents small steps away from the reflex of calculating monetary profit and loss. It becomes a sort of training in acquiring other ways of measuring the value of certain work, or of evaluating it. This is something that seems repugnant to a modern society which seeks to make everything as efficient as possible. Having different scales to measure different things causes various problems and leads to uncertainty, zones of grayness. It even enables people to enjoy 'work' and to dissolve the lines between work and play. Another term that appeared frequently was taru wo shiru or knowing the limits to ones desires. A shortened form of ware tada taru wo shiru, it is an important Zen saying that can be translated as I know what just enough is (Brown 2009). Another thing Sakamoto admires greatly about Edo Japan is the idea of shisso (frugality or austerity), as a virtue. Tanoshii (enjoyable). Sakamoto feels that the actions of Taro Yamamoto (Arita 2012), while note-worthy, exemplify the movement mindset which fails to address whether an activity is enjoyable or not. Muri shite wa tsuzukanai- doing something that requires sacrifices does not last. By not pausing to wonder whether an activity can be continued for life or not, movements endanger themselves, being caught up in the heat of the moment. A key difference in comparison to other movements lies in the fact that organic agriculture is a livelihood: there are lives at stake. One cannot simply drop it and move on, as with movements. It is not something one does in ones spare time. The key, Sakamoto feels, lies in making agriculture more attractive. Ordinary people will not do something that is too hard, or is accompanied by too much hardship. Kakei says that in retrospect, one of the things he regrets is the stubbornness of his youth and his not having experienced living as a farmer which led him to tell people to overcome the hardships of a life lived on the land through sheer power of will. No person in her right mind would choose a life that was full of troubles and hardships. 54 One of the strongest motivators for the farmers I interviewed is a vision of a more just and sustainable society. Victor Frankl observes thatMan does not behave morally for the sake of having a good conscience but for the sake of a cause to which he commits himself, or for a person whom he loves, or for the sake of his God (Frankl 1962:101102). For many, the ethics of the life of a small-holder farmer is a powerful motive. Agrarianism is a problematic concept on its own, and as shown in the literature review, it may be co- opted by pseudo-organics or even conventional farmers. Margaret Gray observes that Agrarianism has served various and often contradictory ends. The ideal has even pitted farmers of different types against each other by offering a flexible rhetoric to anyone laying claim to it. In this way, it has served landowners both large and small, subsistence farmers, anti sprawl environmentalists, utopian communalists, and even farmworkers themselves.those who have benefited most from the ideology are the largest, profit-centered agricultural producers (Gray 2013:22-23). Agrarianism, therefore, has to be subject to the condition that it refers to small- scale systems.
Children and Farming The question of choosing which world we will leave to our children invokes, but goes well beyond, our ethical natures- the question is also, like so many family-related issues, deeply personal. ... Making community is at once an ethical, personal, and practical set of problems (Waldau 2013:305).
With the ideal farmer being defined as a responsible steward for natural resources for future generations, it comes as no surprise that ensuring a better future for their children is another one of their prime motivators. In a late night session of drinking, Sakamoto said that there are basically four basic human needs he feels must be met: shoku(food) , neru(sleep) yaru (sexual urges) and 55 shison(progeny). He observed that living in cities does not allow for the fulfillment of most of these needs, with most of the time devoted to work. Facilities specializing in childcare in the metropolitan areas, especially Tokyo are straining under the pressure of too much demand; high living costs also deter many people from having children. Children do not know what their parents do for a living as well, as they usually cannot accompany their parents to the workplace. On the other hand, small-holder farming usually allows for the participation of any age and skill level. There is a lot to be done on the farm, and children can see and experience first-hand what their parents do for a living. Furuno observes that knowledge about sustainable knowledge and practices abounds in todays world, but that all this information is ultimately artificial, useful but nonetheless different from knowledge that is learnt naturally through all five senses (shizen jouhou). The latter form of knowledge is learnt through ones experiences as a child, meaning that such knowledge would have no chance of growing and turning into life-philosophies unless one is able to move about freely and safely in the natural environment, something that is being made increasingly impossible because of the use of chemicals and automation of many of the tasks in the field (Furuno and Sato 2012:23). Fittingly, Furuno defines success in organic farming as having vegetable and rice fields where children are free to move about (2012:53) On the farm children have a freedom to roam and play that many urban children rarely experience (Garkovich et al. 1995:57). The children in any farming family are very important. When asked how they measure success, farmers with children would not make use of any financial indicators, instead saying that their children are the true indicator of their success. Ensuring a healthy living environment for their children, both in physical and in mental terms, figures high on their list of priorities. A life of farming often brings with it permanent and more family-like relationships (Garkovich et al. 1995:60).The importance of children was manifest in many different ways. Usually newcomers to the farming community, young couples would struggle to be accepted as members. However, through their children, both husband and wife are brought into contact with their neighbors as social barriers are lowered for children. Gazing at their children basking in the sun on a neighbors lawn, the Ueharas tell me that some older members of their community drop by with seasonal vegetables, little 56 treats from the local store, or just share some anecdotes, anything to interact with the children. Kodomotachi ni genki wo moraini! (to get some happiness from the children) is a phrase that is often used. The presents of seasonal vegetables are often substantial, so much so that the Ueharas rarely buy vegetables at the supermarket (Uehara 2013). Raising children is no simple task. The reliance upon family members as well as on those who form the community thus becomes imperative, but it is often a source of pleasure for all (Garkovich et al. 1995:57). Parents have to think what is in the interest of the child, and unless one is willing to have enormous patience with them, it is not possible to deal with them in a proper manner. Sakamoto feels that many young people lack the skills and patience to be parents in todays world. Making an allusion to genpuku, a rite of passage in ancient Japan that conferred adult status on the individual, he argued that without a proper appreciation of the responsibilities that accompanied such rites of passage, many young adults fail to understand and fulfill their duties. The spirit of Bushido, he feels, has been lost. Farmers without children of their own also cite a slightly altered version: their success depends on whether they can leave a vision for an alternative life, an alternative that is becoming increasingly hard to take simply because there are not enough practitioners (Kimura 2013). At the same time, children are the main source of worry for their parents. While farming households are able to provide for the most of the needs of their children, education becomes a thorny issue. Given the high costs of education in Japan, it is primarily worry for whether they will be able to provide for their grown up children that weighs heavy on the minds of their parents. Some of the farmers also emphasized the fact that they did not want their children to become farmers out of inertia, but rather by really aspiring to be one. Ultimately, Sakamoto feels that the independence that meeting ones needs through agriculture allows one to question and confront the status quo. It forces the individual to seek out meaning in ones life, to create joy in work and define the good life. And through the flow of agricultural products and inputs, to stumble upon and discover uncomfortable truths which lead to uncomfortable questions. Without undergoing this process, he feels that many are losing the will to live by falling into an existential vacuum. (T)here are various masks and guises under which the existential vacuum 57 appears. Sometimes the frustrated will to meaning is vicariously compensated for by a will to power, including the most primitive form of the will to power, the will to money (Frankl 1962:109). On the opposite end of the spectrum to the hyakusho is the consumer, the malleable individual, bereft of any bonds (Bauman 2013). Giddens observes that the postmodern order is one that privileges consumption rather than production. The consumer society is one of rapidly changing fashion, the constant creation and obsolescence of goods, and a society without history (Bonner 1997:153). This is the character the practitioners of the markets are able and willing to recognize and accommodate is Homo consumens - the lonely, self-concerned and self-centered shopper (Kahneman 2012:69). And consumens is none other than the sole character that economic theorists regard as deserving of attention, because this is the one credited with keeping the economy on course and lubricating the wheel of economic growth. This entity is Homo oeconomicus- the lonely, self-concerned and self-centered economic actor pursuing the best deal and guided by rational choice (Kahneman 2012:69). Jeffrey Sachs explains the evolution of the consumer: For more than a century, incessant waves of commercial advertising, public relations campaigns, and official propaganda have remolded our psyches to want more and more consumption. The technologies of mass persuasion have become ever more encompassing. ..Now we are fully digital and wired, multimedia, spending hours each day in front of many different kinds of screens that are sending nonstop messages to buy, spend, borrow and buy some more. These messages are driven by a highly professional and highly effective public relations, marketing and advertising industry (Sachs 2011:137).
Modernity Kakei is critical of modernity. In modern times, and particularly for those who live in major cities, many people seem to have lost a purpose in life. The meaning of their work is drowned beneath ever-increasing specialization, and they spend their days at their 58 desks adding figures and writing words in order to receive a monthly salary which they then spend on the various necessities of living. There are also those who are involved only in sports, or incessantly play games. How is this made possible when we take into consideration the livelihood of the peasant of yore? This is a question that surely rests in the deepest recesses of ones thoughts, a question that is driven there and is made to remain there by an abstract attribution to progress in society, without a chance for proper reflection or deliberation (Kakei and Shirato 2009:2425). He made a reference to the case of India, where progress meant the casting away of traditional knowledge. Being a self-declared disciple of Gandhi he had adopted the Mahatmas position towards modernity. For Gandhi, modernity was a movement of forgetfulness where secular, scientific urban India dismissed its roots in the village community. Progress meant a move away from the loincloth and the bullock cart. More particularly, (the Indian modernist) had a theory for eliminating poverty but little understanding of pain and suffering. Poverty could be eliminated but pain and suffering needed to be lived out and understood. Not all pain was a disease or discomfort to be eliminated. If it were, altruism, restraint and asceticism, in fact love would have little to play in the emerging consumerist society (Raghuramaraju 2006:206). Sakamoto commented that the ingredients for a good life include things of beauty, a rhythm in tune with nature, and family. He elaborated upon the concept of things of beauty (utsukushii mono), saying that anything we make ourselves is precious and beautiful by virtue of our having made it, giving it intrinsic value. Self-sufficiency in this sense can be more satisfactory (nattoku dekiru) as well. What he was saying was in stark contrast to the consumer society that we live in today, described by Sakamoto as an endless treadmill that is a key precept of this More! More! Cult (more more kyo). Instead, he counts himself amongst those who practice the Enough! Enough! Philosophy (taru taru kyo) In addition to endless needs, Sakamoto attributes Shuudatsu, or exploitation, to the Japanese quest for benri (convenience). This quest is the stuff of legends; Japan is renowned worldwide for its innovations accumulated in the never-ending pursuit of convenience. This goal, the need to make life more comfortable and convenient, was instrumental in Westernizing Japan, he feels. Change came with absurd ease, with most of the important questions like human rights and colonialism left unanswered and unattended 59 to. Morphing into a currency-driven economy, it was driven along by the powerful illusion that a life without money is impossible. Re-ru ni noranaito kurashite ikenai It feels impossible to live without conforming to the rails laid down by society. Miyawaki also observes that if we simply want to make our present lives more luxurious, convenient, and gratifying, then our materialistic way of thinking should be just the thing. If we want to survive and grow into the future, however, we must realize that our planets resources are finite and that now is the time to make some critical decisions about the future of life on spaceship Earth (Miyawaki and Box 2006:182).
Who is the Peasant? The subsistence farmer is a familiar face in many societies, and is often referred to as a peasant. According to Lewellen, peasant is one of the oldest and most durable classifications in existence. He contends the anthropological view never really strayed far from the popular view: Peasants were traditional peoples who were rooted in the land (2002:223) For most of history, they composed the majority in society and it is only in the past few generations that this has changed. Indeed, peasant masses, as if all that mattered was their sheer numerical weight, were presumed to represent the soul of the nation, the carrier of its spirit, and its future (Scott 2012:3). But the image of the small- scale farmer as being left behind by society was also strong. A basic problem with the concept of peasant is that it never quite meant in reality what the dictionaries say it means, namely, someone who lives off the land by intensive agriculture(as opposed to horticulture) at a relatively low level of technological development ( as opposed to modern farming)(Lewellen, 2002:222). In effect, this understanding of agriculture trapped it in the past, in direct contrast to the modernizing urban center (Ohnuki-Tierney 1993:122). It was contended that agriculture was the foundation of the Japanese nation and that its villages preserved the rustic, simple ways of the past (Ohnuki-Tierney, 1993:122), in the process maintaining the body of Japan that was being steadily weakened by the city. The intellectuals in the Meiji period exalted the simplicity and purity of the Japanese countryside and its farmers, but regarded them, nonetheless, as country bumpkins (Ohnuki-Tierney, 1993:121).Farmers were generally looked down upon as being stuck in an undesirable occupation. A bemused 60 farmer recalls, how, bent over from some weeding, he heard a woman tell her child to stop misbehaving if he wanted to avoid becoming like a farmer (anna fuu ni naccha ikenai yo). Farming was, and often still is, seen as a waste of college education (Garkovich et al. 1995:70). One of my interviewees mentioned the apprehension he felt when starting off on a career in farming after gaining a college degree: it is like a leap of faith. Indeed, most of the graduates of agricultural sciences end up as researchers or professors. Kakei terms what he is doing not nougyou(agriculture) but rather hyakusho gurashi(peasant life) (2009:12); others prefer the term jikyuu jisoku no kurashi (self- sufficient life) or nouteki kurashi(agrarian life). The main point is that people are keen on differentiating themselves from agriculture that is profit-oriented and instead focus on farming which helps support lifestyles. The word hyakusho is used by farmers to refer to themselves, and this word is often translated as peasant, but this term remains inadequate to capture the remarkable diversity and ideas that the hyakusho have. The recent attempts and promises of the government which seek to make agriculture more profitable are also questionable. While seeming to respect the role of the farmer within society, closer examination makes it seem their economic or consumerist identities rather than their identities as members of rural communities and cultures that is being respected (Furukawa 2007:9). This makes it apparent that farmers are not identified as members of a local community worthy of being preserved in its own right, but rather as economic units capable of rationally maximizing costs and benefits (2007:910). On the other hand, agrarian citizenship is a concept that tries to bring the community into the picture. Agrarian citizenship ... recognizes the roles of both nature and society in the continuing political, economic and cultural evolution of agrarian society (Wiebe et al. 2010:95). It seeks the active participation of rural actors in the radical resistance to the expansion of market capitalism. Its goals include not only the reclamation of a humanistic community but also protection against the continued decimation of social and ecological spaces (2010:95).
Conclusions The higher and more profitable a mans position, the more unstable it becomes, and the more terrible and dangerous a fall from 61 it for him, and the more firmly the man believes in the existing order, and therefore with the more ease of conscience can such a man perpetrate cruel and wicked acts, as though they were not in his own interest, but for the maintenance of that order' (Tolstoy and Garnett 2011:220).
This thesis has looked at the various aspects of contemporary agriculture in Japan from the viewpoint of the farmers, and has attempted to understand why they farm. In uncovering how they understand their profession and how they connect to society, I have provided their account of organic agriculture in Japan. This thesis also locates this move for a more sustainable form of agriculture within the global movement towards food sovereignty. The hyakusho does not need somebody to act as a spokesperson for her; she just needs more people to understand why she does what she does. Hyakusho do not wish for more remuneration, but instead for a realization of the ideals that they adhere to. As Tolstoy wisely observed, the good cannot seize power, nor retain it; to do this men must love power. And love of power is inconsistent with goodness; but quite consistent with the very opposite qualities- pride, cunning, cruelty (Tolstoy and Garnett 2011:180). Here then, lies the conundrum: is it possible to spread the ideals of the hyakusho, ideas of food sovereignty without corrupting it by associating with power? Perhaps this question will only be answered with time, as the children of the hyakusho grow up and are faced with decisions on how to live their lives. Miyawaki suggests that the way of the hyakusho is the only way forward. we must work and get our hands dirty. We need to follow an ecological blueprint and design our settled landscapes using plant species from the original natural vegetation. We need to move away from a culture oriented toward production and consumption and meet our energy, food, and health-related needs more frugally, even if this means a lifestyle that puts less emphasis on ease and comfort and sometimes requires us to get by with less (Miyawaki and Box 2006:216). Whatever the future may hold, the hyakusho will always be out in the fields, nurturing the life that sustains humanity.
62 Appendix 1 Photos.
Many different varieties of plants grown together.(Kakeis field).
Rokuon Farm 63
The entrance to Kakeis house.
64 The hilly terrain typical of Yasato
A pile of books.
The entrance to Furunos Farm.
Furunos field. Notice the paddy field beside the freshly tilled soil. 65
One of Ueharas citrus orchards.
The Uehara family
A view of the settlement from the orchard.
The truck used by Sakamoto to collect garbage. 66
Examples of tsuushin or newsletters.
67
A Rocket Stove
Trash in various-colored bags.
Sugiyama and his son in their rice-fields.
68
Bibliography
Note i: Books where the e-book format has been referred to have location numbers (denoted by an l.) instead of page numbers. Note ii: The names of the Japanese books has been preserved in order to make it easier to find the relevant books.
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(Culture of The Land) Todd LeVasseur - Pramod Parajuli - Norman Wirzba - Religion and Sustainable Agriculture - World Spiritual Traditions and Food Ethics-University Press of Kentucky (2016)