Back to the land in Japan

[snoozy]

Here's an article from the BBC, about young Japanese who are going back to the land. One interesting statistic it gives is that the avg age of farmers in Japan is 65.8!

"The bright lights of the big city have been a draw for decades, pulling people into Tokyo from the countryside. But for some young Japanese, the city with its skyscrapers and neon lights is losing its appeal.

Like millions of others from her generation Megumi Sakaguchi cannot find a permanent job, just contracts. Temporary workers now make up a third of the workforce - up from fewer than a fifth in the mid-1980s - and a greater proportion of them are young. The certainty of the job-for-life tradition enjoyed by earlier generations has passed her by.

"I never know if I'm going to lose my job," she says. "Financially my anxiety levels are very high. In the morning during the rush hour when I'm getting off the train, the way people behave, they are almost inhuman," she adds.

So she has decided it is time for a change. One weekend in October Megumi Sakaguchi joined a bus tour through the Japanese countryside.

Like her fellow passengers, who were also from the cities, she was getting a taste of what life would be like as a farmer - trying out working the land for a day. Excursions like this around apple orchards and greenhouses full of strawberry plants, talking to farmers in their fields, take place pretty much every week somewhere in rural Japan. They are organised and paid for by local authorities which are desperate to repopulate the countryside..."

Read more at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15850243

[HermitJohn]

Buisinesses will eventually figure out that the short term benefits of contract workers means those workers are in constant income uncertainty so will buy less, at least be much more reluctant to take on any long term debt. Thus less sales and more sluggish economy.

Manufacturers in USA that jumped ship for cheap labor elsewhere were counting on all other manufacturers continuing in USA and providing well paid jobs so those people could buy the products. Every good paying job runs away in the quest for more profit, well you no longer have consumers able and willing to buy. Or at least those who were formerly able to buy bigger more expensive products can now only afford small inexpensive products which usually means less profit. Chasing short term economic benefits usually ends up screwing everybody long term.

[FarmboyBill]

It sounds like a great idea, Small town officials deaparate to repopulate the area around their towns. It should be done here. Thing is, There, likely same as here, all the land is already owned by somebody, or is for sale so high that nobody could buy it, Not even the land barons who already live out there. I cant imagine a temp who is unsure of their future, haveing enough money to be able to buy a farm, regardless of the size, unless it is an acre or 2 with NOTHING on it.

[Jokarva]

It's good to hear and it wouldn't surprise me that young people would love to farm if it was offered as a viable option for them.

Many people who live in Japanese cities live 'semi-homesteading' lifestyles already...they grow vegetables on balconies, hang laundry out to dry on their balconies or small yards, walk or ride bikes to shop, conserve energy and water, live in small efficient homes, use solar water heaters...much like many of the people here on HT.

[naturelover]

Like her fellow passengers, who were also from the cities, she was getting a taste of what life would be like as a farmer - trying out working the land for a day. Excursions like this around apple orchards and greenhouses full of strawberry plants, talking to farmers in their fields, take place pretty much every week somewhere in rural Japan. They are organised and paid for by local authorities which are desperate to repopulate the countryside..."

I think this is great that they're organizing experiences like that for young Japanese adults. Japan has had a program (at least 15 years now) whereby they send teenage students in groups to other countries to get a month of tuturial/work experience on foreign farms. The objective is for the students to learn new foreign farming and agricultural practises and technology that can be incorporated into farming practices in Japan. Each student usually gets some work experience at 4 farms during their visit to the other country, some of them will work with a particular farm for 2 weeks to a full month. The work they do is volunteer, they don't get wages from the farmers and their residences during their visits are not with the farms, they reside with other host families who promote the program.

At a commercial waterfowl hatchery that I worked at I got 2 of these trainee students for a full month. Both were 17 y.o. girls, very polite and very eager to learn and be helpful. They learned as much as they could from care and feeding of the laying birds, to collecting and prepping the eggs, cleaning, candling eggs, how to operate the big walk in egg incubators and hatchers, and how to care for the hatchlings. Great girls they were, and very cheerful and hard workers.

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[siberian]

I would be willing to guess that the feeling of "back to earth" or homesteading is world wide

[Explorer]

When I was there in the late 1970's I spent some time traveling in and through the lower interior valleys. Most of the farms I saw were small with the average size around 6 - 7 of our acres. They were intensively farmed with rice usually being the main crop. Many veggies were ground around the rice fields usually on a little high ground. Rice fields were flooded and then hand planted, very labor intensive.

[nehimama]

About 10 years ago, hubby and I ran a FarmStay program. Our students were from Japan, and were very eager to learn everything they could about farming in the States. I was fortunate enough to visit one farm in Japan, in reciprocation. It was amazing to me just how much they were able to wreak out of the small parcel of land they worked, and they worked HARD. They were just as amazed at the humongous equipment in the US, and the wide-open spaces.

[ldc]

snoozy/all: they aired this segment, via BBC America on PBS yesterday. Also showed a young man working in a cucumber greenhouse with an 86 yr old farmer (tied in to the aging farmer population). Can probablly watch this on-line at pbs.org/bbc.