Organic farming in rural Japan
Although the cities of Japan are well known throughout the world, it is the sparsely populated Japanese countryside that interests me the most. Never having really been a city kid; and although I do enjoy visiting cities to do some shopping, go out and eat, or check out what is going on in the clubs for example, for me the rural life is where it’s at for some quality rest and relaxation Japanese style.
I’m in the south of Japan on the island of Kyushu, I live very close to the city of Fukuoka or Hakata as it is sometimes known, and it’s a great city for me in terms of size and location. Perched on the north west tip of the island of Kyushu it has good connections with an international airport, ferry terminals and the shinkansen. This makes it the ideal departure point to head north to Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Kobe and the general Kansai district, and further on to Tokyo if required. It also makes a great departure point for exploring the island of Kyushu.
As you drive south from Fukuoka, there are beautiful mountain ranges, which for the majority of the year are covered with a lush, green, impenetrably dense forest of bamboo, firs, maple and cedar trees, amongst others. Even in winter the mountains are not bare for long and in the autumn their colours are spectacular. There are volcanoes and consequently many hot springs (onsen) to visit, and lots of rivers and waterfalls dotted about around the landscape.
For the most part, mountains, too steep to climb, live, or farm on, take up the entire landscape. The roads pass directly through the mountains in tunnels and across bridges that I can only think, must have been a nightmare to engineer. Occasionally though, where the valleys flatten out into plateaux, you find small rural farming communities, on the bigger plains towns and cities have sprung up, especially those based around the onsen tourism industry or near the coast.
Some towns such as Yufuin in Oita prefecture have expensive, rustic, classically styled old lodgings and you can tell that value is placed on a towns rural charms and see the effort made to preserve this air of authenticity and wholesome living, in sharp contrast to the concrete sprawl and neon of the cities.
It’s a shame that so many young people have left the traditional life in the countryside to seek their fortunes in the cities, but this is undoubtedly the case. Rural areas seem to be mostly populated by elderly people living the good life on their smallholdings and trading a little in the markets or in the tourist trade. There does however seem to be a trend back to the countryside, and it is becoming more popular to live a simple life in the country and this is rejuvinating countryside areas a little.
It attracts a certain kind of person I think, some are artists seeking inspiration from nature, some just want a more relaxed lifestyle and a good place to raise their children away from the cities. The nature of work is very different obviously, and it is good to see the rural entrepreneurs, crafts, delicious foods and products that are being made.
The organic movement, especially farmhouse type foods and local specialities unique to an area can make an area famous especially when the locale is combined with an opportunity for some appreciation of nature. Although it’s hard to see the appreciation of nature in the city, you can tell through the marketing of products and the tourists flocking to the countryside to go camping and stay in beautiful places in the countryside that this is the case.
There are even small clusters of counter culture springing up on the coast where you can sometimes find surfing hippies, living in caravans and make shift houses with solar panels and windmills, making jewellery, listening to dub music and selling stuff they picked up in Bali or Thailand.
Living and working in the countryside has always appealed to me, probably because I grew up myself in the countryside in Suffolk and Norfolk in the UK, it just seems natural to want to live amongst nature rather than amongst concrete, no matter how spectacular the architecture maybe. I even considered doing a world tour by way of organic farming in return for board and lodgings once.
It is good to see that WWOOF (willing workers on organic farms) is well established in Japan and provides an opportunity to do just that. I recommend it, I’m sure that of all the countries you could do WWOOF in, Japan would be one of those where you could learn the most interesting farming methods and rural crafts and trades. I found an interesting article about a foreigner living the good life in Japan over at escape artist too. You never know, I may be heading in his direction for some advice in years to come.