Evaluating Rural Properties and Houses with Farmland Yourself: Primary Assessment from a Crisis-Adaptation Perspective - Migration Guide ②

Introduction

In the first draft, I inverted the criteria for judgment. I argued that one should look at the presence of a well rather than proximity to a supermarket, and at the location within a small watershed rather than proximity to a main road. So, when you actually find a property you are interested in on a real estate site and visit the location, what should you check?

Real estate agents explain things as "fully equipped with water supply," "south-facing," and "includes farmland." However, that water supply might be located on top of a buried original well. South-facing might mean excessive solar radiation in the summer. The farmland might have had its topsoil washed away after being left abandoned for twenty years. There is always a distance between the words on documents and signs and the actual state of the land and buildings.

This article covers the observation procedures to bridge that distance. We will look at the five areas of water, soil, topography, buildings, and legal status in order, and concretize what the parties themselves should read on-site. Stand on the land wearing boots, carrying a map, and holding a tape measure, a shovel, and a pen. Do not seek perfection in a single viewing; look at it repeatedly throughout the four seasons. Observation and purchase are different skills, and the methodology of making a purchase decision only after accumulating observations is the core of this article.

Key References—Literature that teaches you what to look for on-site

This article is a practical guide, so the literature has been narrowed down to those that teach you "what to look for on-site." I will not delve deeply into the ideological literature mentioned in the first draft, but will focus on literature related to site assessment and Japan-specific institutional practices.

Site Assessment Practice

• Ben Falk, 'The Resilient Farm and Homestead' (2013) — Site assessment, hydrological management, and zoning design in cold-temperate climates

• Bill Mollison, 'Permaculture: A Designers' Manual' (1988) — A classic on site assessment, zone analysis, and sector analysis

• Sepp Holzer, 'Sepp Holzer's Permaculture' (2010) — Practices in mountainous and sloped areas, close to Japan's hilly and mountainous regions

• Eliot Coleman, 'The New Organic Grower' (latest edition 2018) — Agricultural perspectives on soil, water, and solar radiation

• John Seymour, 'The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It' (latest edition 2009) — Perspectives on household self-sufficiency for land and buildings

Supplementary Literature on Hydrology and Soil

• Brad Lancaster, 'Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond' (2013) — Practical aspects of rainwater and surface water management

• Nigel Palmer, 'The Regenerative Grower's Guide to Garden Amendments' (2020) — Practical aspects of soil diagnosis and improvement

Practice and Systems in Japan

• Shinji Yotsui, 'Living on Earth, Living with Earth: Self-Sufficiency through Permaculture' (2014)

The structural analysis presented in the first draft, '8 Months of Oil Reserves vs. Zero Fertilizer Reserves: The Fatal Fault Line in Food Security Exposed by the Strait of Hormuz Blockade', serves as the premise for the soil evaluation in this article. Soil evaluation in an era where fertilizer is stably supplied to the market and soil evaluation in an era where that premise has collapsed are not the same task.

1. Wells, Springs, and Streams: Reading Water on Site

In short, water is the top priority, and it must be evaluated before everything else. If a building is damaged, it can be repaired. If the soil is poor, it can be improved. However, bringing water to land that lacks it is structurally difficult.

Look at both surface water and groundwater. Check for the presence of wells, spring points, streams or creeks on or adjacent to the property, and nearby water sources. If there is a well, identify its type.

Driven wells (shallow wells made by driving iron pipes into the ground), dug wells (traditional wells dug by hand and enclosed with stone masonry, etc.), and deep wells (modern wells that pump from deep layers using electric pumps). Each differs in water quality, water volume, and operational feasibility during power outages.

The decisive factor is 'can it be drawn during a power outage?' A deep well that relies solely on an electric pump will stop immediately if the power goes out. A well equipped with a hand pump, or one with a structure that allows for physical drawing with a bucket or windlass, has exceptional value from a crisis adaptation perspective. To use an analogy, a deep well is like an electric vehicle, while one equipped with a hand pump is like an electric-assist bicycle that can still be pushed and moved even when it runs out of fuel.

The procedure for confirming whether a well is still active is as follows.

• Open the well cover and visually check the water level. Try drawing a bucketful with a windlass or bucket.

• Check for water level fluctuations in both winter and summer. Wells have large seasonal variations.

• Talk to neighbors who use wells. Ask about their experience with drying up, water volume trends, and water quality characteristics.

• Perform a primary assessment with a simple kit (pH, nitrate nitrogen, E. coli), and outsource full-scale testing.

Confirming upstream pollution sources is done in four stages: changes in land category in the registry, old maps, hazard maps, and on-site surveys.Check if there are livestock barns, industrial waste disposal sites, pesticide concentration areas, abandoned mines, golf courses, or large-scale solar power facilities within a radius of several kilometers. The presence of these affects both groundwater and surface water. In particular, suspect heavy metal contamination for abandoned mines and pesticide/herbicide accumulation for golf courses.

Investigate springs in winter.This is because some springs dry up in summer while others appear in winter. If you observe them in conjunction with the flow of cold air, you can also see the risk of late frost damage if the spring point overlaps with a cold air stagnation zone.

Water rights is an issue that cannot be ignored. It is the point most overlooked by new migrants. Obligations to join maintenance associations for agricultural irrigation channels (water utilization associations), customs regarding well usage with neighbors, and the limits of free use of groundwater. These do not appear in the registry. They can only be grasped by interviewing village elders or the head of the water utilization association. Just because you own a well does not mean you can use it freely. In the case of communal water sources, there are customs regarding the order of use and water allocation.

2. What do abandoned farmlands tell us?

In short, even among abandoned lands that look the same, some can be reclaimed in three years while others take ten. Whether you read a weed-covered plot as "land left to nature" or "land drenched in massive amounts of herbicide" will significantly change your first few years after purchase.

Soil condition can hardly be judged from the surface. The items to check are multi-layered: herbicide and pesticide residues, soil erosion, acidification, nutrient depletion, accumulation of radioactive materials or heavy metals, fluctuations in groundwater levels, and past land use (orchard, paddy, field, pasture).

The scope that a party can confirm through simple testing is limited.

• pH test strips or digital meter. Japanese field soils are often acidified.

• Simple EC meter (electrical conductivity meter). An indicator of salt accumulation (accumulation of chemical fertilizers).

• Visual assessment of organic matter content. Dark brown with a granular structure is good; if it is strongly gray or yellowish, it is depleted.

• Hand-feel test for gravel, sand, and clay. If it holds together when squeezed in the palm, it is clay; if it crumbles, it is sand; if it holds together moderately, it is loam (a mixture of clay and sand suitable for cultivation).

Past land use can be read from changes in land category in the registry, old maps, interviews with neighbors, and the vegetation on the site. Vegetation indicators are surprisingly eloquent. If field horsetail is thriving, it tends to be acidic; if common chickweed is abundant, it is fertile; if Japanese silver grass is dominant, the land is poor and tends to be dry; mugwort and common vetch indicate moderate fertility.

The core here is the premise discussed throughout this series. In a situation where the premise of a stable supply of fertilizer in the market has collapsed, the central axis of soil evaluation itself changes. Soil evaluation based on the premise that anything will grow if chemical fertilizer is added does not function from a crisis adaptation perspective.

In other words, the question of evaluation is not "Will it yield if I add chemical fertilizer?" but rather “To what extent can it be self-regenerated without external inputs?” Evaluate the room for circulating green manure (planting legumes, etc., to increase soil fertility), cover crops (crops that keep the soil from being bare and suppress weeds), compost, manure, and ash within the site and the village.

Soil is an item that can be improved after the fact, but regeneration takes time. It requires at least three years, and in some cases, five to ten years. This requires a perspective of viewing the land as an object to be nurtured over the long term, rather than seeking yields immediately after purchase.

The reaction, "Can an amateur tell the difference between good and bad soil?" is reasonable. The range of information obtained through simple diagnosis is limited, and precise testing for pesticide residues or heavy metal contamination must be outsourced.

A three-stage approach would be appropriate. First, a primary screening through the party's simple diagnosis, then decision-making through a full-scale diagnosis before purchase (several thousand to tens of thousands of yen at a soil analysis center), and finally, creating a regeneration plan through continuous observation after purchase. Regarding the practical work of regenerating abandoned farmland, the no-dig and green manure crop rotation methods introduced so far are directly useful.

3. Position within the small watershed, slope direction, and cold air traps

In short, if you read the topography, you can see both disaster risks and agricultural potential. Even within the same village, properties on ridges and properties in valleys differ in all aspects of hydrology, microclimate, and disaster risk.

In this article, we will further refine the positioning within a small watershed that was introduced in the first draft. If you are in the uppermost reaches, the autonomy of water quality and quantity is high, but cold air tends to accumulate, and late frost damage persists longer. The middle reaches have relatively mild cultivation conditions, but are placed between upstream pollution and downstream concentration. The lower reaches have a large water collection volume and are suitable for farmland, but they take on flood risks and inflow from upstream.

The direction and angle of the slope are directly linked to the fuel consumption of the house and the yield of agricultural crops.

• South-facing slope: Maximum solar radiation, low winter heating load. However, be careful of excessive solar radiation and dryness in summer

• West-facing slope: Strong afternoon solar radiation, high summer cooling load. Disadvantageous for houses

• East-facing slope: Soft morning solar radiation, cool in summer. Suitable for leafy vegetables

• North-facing slope: Low solar radiation, high winter heating load. Disadvantageous for houses but advantageous for forests and mushrooms

• Slope angle: Gentle slopes (about 5 to 10 degrees) have good drainage and solar radiation. Steep slopes have a risk of landslides

Observation of microclimates can only be seen by standing on the site throughout the four seasons. Depressions where cold air accumulates are prone to late frost damage, which harms early spring vegetables. Slopes where frost remains late are slow to warm up, delaying growth. Valley lines with poor ventilation in summer trap humidity, causing the house to decay. Slopes directly exposed to the winter northwest wind see heating loads skyrocket.

Superimposing hazard maps with on-site observation must not be forgotten. Sediment disaster alert areas, special alert areas, flood inundation assumption areas, and steep slope collapse danger areas. Places where these overlap are excluded based on standard safety criteria rather than just a crisis adaptation perspective.

However, hazard maps are the result of government calculations based on assumed rainfall and do not respond to unexpected events. Place names and old maps complement this. "Sawa" (swamp/stream), "Tani" (valley), "Tsu" (port), "Kata" (lagoon), "Ike" (pond), "Ta" (rice field), "Hara" (field)—these place names are recording media for the terrain and disaster history of that land. "Tsu" place names remain at tsunami arrival points, and "Sawa" and "Tani" place names remain in areas prone to sediment disasters. If you overlay old maps from the Meiji era with modern maps, you can see where river flows have changed, where rice fields have been converted into residential land, and where ponds have been filled in.

As for concrete observation tools, the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan's topographic maps (especially color-coded elevation maps and slope classification maps), mountain climbing map apps (YAMAP, Yamareco, etc.), and Konjaku Map on the Web are practical. On-site observation after rain directly tells you where water collects and where it flows. If you walk the site early in the morning, especially before dawn in winter, you can physically experience the stagnation areas of cold air.

One might think, "If it's considered safe on the hazard map, it should be fine," but it cannot be taken at face value. Supplementation with place names and old maps fills the limitations of administrative information.

4. Structure, Foundation, and Roof of Traditional Houses—What a Layperson Should Look At and What to Leave to Experts

In short, structural judgment (seismic resistance, tilt, decay) is ultimately premised on outsourcing to an architect, but there are many signs that the parties involved can also check primarily. Primary evaluation determines the quality and cost of outsourcing.

The main inspection items for traditional house evaluation can be organized by area.

• Structure (pillars, beams, foundation, eaves girders): Condition of materials, soundness of joints, presence of decay

• Roof: Evaluation by type such as thatched, tiled, or galvanized iron. Misalignment or chipping of tiles, distortion of the ridge

• Exterior walls: Earth walls, wood siding, mortar. Cracks and peeling

• Underfloor: Termite tunnels, moisture, decay of the foundation sill

• Attic: Signs of roof leaks, condition of structural members

• Plumbing areas: Aging of water supply and drainage pipes, pipe routing

The procedure for a primary evaluation by the interested party is concrete. Look through the underfloor inspection hatch to check for foundation decay and termite tunnels. Look through the attic inspection hatch to check for signs of roof leaks and the condition of structural members. Check for building tilt using a spirit level, rolling a marble, and the ease of opening and closing doors. For the foundation, check the condition of the stones if it is a stone-based foundation, or check for cracks and defects if it is a concrete strip foundation.

Here, I present a unique argument for this article. A "livable house" and an "autonomously capable house" are different concepts. The former is a general residential evaluation axis based on roof leaks and earthquake resistance, while the latter is an evaluation axis based on a crisis-adaptation perspective, assessed by the possibility of self-securing fuel, water, and food.

When viewed as an autonomously capable house, the checklist is as follows.

• Possibility of installing a wood stove or wood-fired bath. Add points if there are chimney traces, earthen floors, or hearth traces

• Positional relationship with a well. Feasibility of indoor plumbing connection

• Outbuildings other than the main house. Storehouses, barns, workshops, toilets, bathhouses, former chicken coops, former compost sheds

• Trees on the property. Fruit trees (persimmon, plum, chestnut, fig, etc.), firewood tree species (konara oak, sawtooth oak, cherry, etc.)

• Cultivation history on the property. Age of fruit trees, traces of vegetable garden plots

Outbuildings are hidden assets. Storehouses and barns can be repurposed as spaces for processing, preservation, and storage; they are often much cheaper than new construction and have sturdy structures. If there are traces of chicken coops or compost sheds, it is proof that such practices were successful on that land in the past, lowering the hurdle for restarting them.

Trees on the property are resources that are already growing. Fruit trees, in particular, take decades from planting to harvest, so a property with 20-year-old persimmon or plum trees saves that much time. If there are sawtooth or konara oak stumps, there is room to regenerate them as firewood and charcoal forests.

The possibility of breaking away from electricity dependence is also evaluated. Room for renovation to propane gas, firewood, solar power, solar water heating, and rainwater utilization. I want to assume readers who aim for progressive renovation that utilizes the structure of existing buildings rather than new construction or large-scale renovation. Instead of creating a finished product all at once, renovate from where possible.

Items that should be outsourced include seismic diagnosis, precision inspection for termite damage, structural soundness of the roof, and leak inspection of water supply and drainage pipes. The cost ranges from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yen, which should be judged in comparison to the property price.

The anxiety that "old folk houses cost too much to maintain" is valid. However, in many cases, this can be handled through progressive renovation, expanding the scope of what you can do yourself, and utilizing outbuildings rather than full-scale remodeling. The issue of maintenance costs changes significantly based on two axes: "house size" and "the scope of what you do yourself."

5. Farmland Law, Water Rights, and Commonage Rights—Customary Rights Not Appearing in Registration

In short, clearly distinguishing between what can be verified through documents and what cannot is the key to preventing disputes after relocation.

Registration documents are the absolute basics. They can be obtained from the Legal Affairs Bureau, local municipalities, and Agricultural Commissions.

• Registry (Land/Building): Owner, land category, area, and history of ownership changes

• Official Map: Land shape and positional relationship

• Land Survey Map: Location of boundary lines

• Fixed Asset Tax Evaluation Certificate: Assessed value and land category

• Farmland Basic Ledger: Verify with the Agricultural Commission; relationship with the Farmland Act

Specific items to check include the status of boundary confirmation, encroachment on neighboring land, easements, private road burdens, co-ownership status, and unregistered buildings. If boundaries are unclear, request a land and house investigator, but it is standard practice to have the seller cover the costs of confirmation before purchase.

Farmland is treated differently from ordinary land. It is subject to a separate set of restrictions known as the Farmland Act.

In other words, purchasing farmland requires permission from the Agricultural Commission. Article 3 of the Farmland Act covers the transfer of rights to farmland, Article 4 covers the conversion of one's own farmland, and Article 5 covers conversion involving the transfer of rights. Permission criteria vary by region. Minimum area requirements (the condition that a certain area must be cultivated to acquire the land) also differ by municipality; some areas have relaxed this to 50 ares (5,000m²) or less, while others effectively relax requirements through vacant house banks.

Farmland designated as an Agricultural Promotion Area or Agricultural Use Area is subject to even stricter conversion rules. Even if a property is advertised as a "traditional house with farmland," if that farmland is within an Agricultural Use Area, you will not be able to use it freely.

This is the core of the matter. Customary rights do not appear in the registry. They are maintained through oral tradition within the village. Specifically, the following rights and obligations coexist.

• Water Rights: Obligation to join the irrigation maintenance association (water users' association), pay dues, and participate in communal work several times a year (dredging canals, cleaning waterways)

• Commonage Rights (Iriaiken): Customary use of shared forests and land. Rights to collect firewood, wild vegetables, and timber

• Customary Usage Rights for Forests and Fields: Customs regarding firewood and charcoal forests

• Obligation to Participate in Shrine and Temple Festivals: Involves substantial financial and labor burdens

If you do not grasp these through interviews with village elders or the neighborhood association president, you will end up saying "I wasn't told about this" after moving in. The procedure for prior confirmation is specific.

• Visit the neighborhood association president to ask about the organization of the neighborhood association and its dues

• Confirm the existence of water usage associations, membership requirements, levies, and obligations for communal work.

• Ask the village elders about the existence of commonage rights or customary rights to use forests and fields.

• Confirm the scope of the shrine's parishioners and the expectations for participation in festivals.

It is also worth organizing the differences between vacant house banks and general real estate agencies. Vacant house banks are property information aggregation systems operated by local governments and are often linked to subsidies for migrants. The advantages are that property prices are low and the local government provides a certain level of mediation. The disadvantages are that the amount of information is limited, and since professional agents are not involved, the buyer bears significant responsibility, and there may be restrictions on usage or resale.

The notions of "freely usable land" and "freely usable buildings" implicitly assumed by mainstream guides do not hold in villages where customary rights are functional. While this can be treated as a burden, another perspective is possible.

From the perspective of parallel society theory, customary rights are evidence of village autonomy and function as a parallel order in themselves.New entrants are incorporated into village autonomy by following customs. The reaction that "customary rights are outdated" conflicts with the perspective of re-evaluating these as functions of village autonomy. This point will be detailed in the third draft.

"This is not 'decline' but 'collapse'—Hudson reads the food crisis and Japan's greatest vulnerability"The structural collapse based on the market economy discussed in the above is not unrelated to post-war institutional designs such as the Farmland Act and the Agricultural Commission system. Systems built on the premise that the market economy is functioning begin to take on different meanings when that premise is shaken.

6. Priorities—Water and topography are the highest priority; soil and buildings have room for post-purchase improvement

In short, property evaluation is not completed in a single viewing. At least three visits, preferably throughout the four seasons, are necessary.

The reason is simple: properties and land show different faces depending on the season. The southern limit of solar radiation around the winter solstice, drainage conditions during the rainy season, damage history after typhoons, and excessive solar radiation around the summer solstice can only be observed in different seasons.

Let's organize the observation items by season.

• Around the winter solstice: Southern limit of solar radiation, cold air accumulation, heating load, freezing

• Spring (from early spring to the late frost period): Presence of late frost damage, spring water volume, flow of snowmelt water

• Rainy season: Drainage conditions, roof leaks, humidity, behavior of waterways

• Around the summer solstice: Excessive solar radiation, ventilation, cooling load, growing conditions for summer vegetables

• Typhoon season: Wind paths, damage history, evacuation routes

• Winter snowfall season: Snow accumulation, snow removal burden, roof load

Here, I would like to present a hierarchy of priorities to address the reader's sense of burden. It is not my intention for this to be read as meaning you cannot buy unless you perfectly confirm every item listed in this article. By creating a hierarchy, it becomes possible to allocate limited time and resources to the most important items.

Tier 1 (Must be checked in advance; difficult to improve):

• Water (presence of a well, water quality, water rights)

• Topography (landslide/flood risk, location within a small watershed)

• Legal status (registration, Farmland Act, customary rights)

Tier 2 (Advance check recommended; can be improved after purchase):

• Soil (screening via simple diagnosis, decision-making via full-scale analysis)

• Building (address through progressive renovation)

• Adaptation to microclimate

Tier 3 (Items for continuous observation after purchase):

• Vegetation

• Neighborhood relations

• Seasonal changes

A concrete observation plan can be structured as follows, for example.

• First visit (Spring/Early Summer): Basic confirmation, document acquisition, neighborhood greetings, visits to the neighborhood association president and water users' association head

• Second visit (Rainy season or Summer): Drainage, humidity, excessive solar radiation, roof leaks

• Third visit (Autumn/Winter): Solar radiation levels, heating load, snow accumulation, cold air flow

• Fourth visit (As needed): Accompanied by an architect, land and house investigator, and water quality testing professional

Also, organize the criteria for outsourcing to experts. Architects handle seismic diagnosis and structural evaluation; land and house investigators handle boundary determination; judicial scriveners handle registration; soil diagnostic firms handle soil analysis; and water quality testing firms handle precise water quality inspections. Use a cost estimate of 100,000 to 500,000 yen as a benchmark to judge against the property price.

The reaction that 'I cannot spend that much time' is valid. This is where the multiple strategies mentioned in the first draft come into play. Using rental properties, dual-residence living, or trial relocation programs are all ways to extend the timeline. Rather than treating the purchase as a one-time, irreversible decision, it is also rational from a crisis adaptation standpoint to adopt a stance of accumulating decision-making materials in stages.

Before outsourcing, perform a primary self-assessment; this ultimately determines the quality of the outsourced work. The results will be completely different if you dump everything on an architect by saying 'please check everything' versus making a specific request like 'I am concerned about the decay of the foundation here, please check the distortion of this beam.'

Greeting and interviewing neighbors is more important than confirming legal status. "What kind of person lived here?" "How did they use the water?" "What issues are currently affecting the village?" These are not written in any documents, but they are the information that will determine your life after purchase. This serves as a natural bridge to the community chapter that will be developed in the third draft.

Read and understand a property before buying it.

The thirty items presented in this article should be read with the premise that no property exists that perfectly satisfies all of them. There is no such thing as a perfect property. There are only "better properties" relative to your own situation, budget, capabilities, and priorities.

Let us reconfirm the hierarchy of priorities. The first tier consists of items that must be checked in advance and are difficult to improve, and
water, topography, and legal status fall into this category. These cannot be compromised. The second tier consists of items that are recommended to be checked in advance but can be improved after purchase, and
soil, buildings, and adaptation to microclimates fall into this category. Even if they are not perfect, it is fine as long as there is a regeneration plan. The third tier consists of items for continuous observation after purchase, and vegetation, neighborhood relations, and seasonal changes
fall into this category. These are things to be nurtured after moving in.

Observation and purchasing are different skills. Observation is a passive, analytical activity of reading the land and buildings, while purchasing is an active, selective activity of making decisions within the constraints of reality. If you confuse the two, you will either rush into a purchase without sufficient observation or become so immersed in observation that you miss the opportunity to purchase.

After accumulating observations, you decide at some point that "this is the property to go with." There is no perfect information when you decide, but you cannot move forward unless you decide. The readiness to accept this tension is the core of being a stakeholder.

By the way, the recovery of the "inherent capabilities of the amateur" discussed by Illich lies in the groundwater vein of practical articles like this one. It is not about leaving everything to experts, nor is it about taking everything on by yourself. Outsource what should be outsourced, and observe what you should observe yourself. The ability to draw that boundary based on the stakeholder's judgment is the core of the crisis-adaptation perspective.

By the way, while I have focused on items that can be confirmed through documents so far, the question remains: how do you confirm things that cannot be confirmed through documents? Customary rights do not appear in registration documents. To read the actual situation of water usage associations, the customs of common rights, and the scope of shrine parishioners, you have no choice but to talk to people, not look at documents.

In other words, the dual structure of registration documents and customary rights is directly linked to community issues beyond the boundaries of property evaluation. Customary rights are evidence of village autonomy, and to read them, you have no choice but to build relationships with the people of the village. Here, the question expands from property evaluation that concludes with document verification to site selection that includes relationship building.

A property is obtained the moment you purchase it. The land is the same. The rights on paper are the same. However, the living order of the village, including customary rights, and the position you can occupy within it—these cannot be bought. What I will deal with in the third draft is this realm of "things that cannot be bought." The house is the first step, not the final destination.

Reference Materials

• Ben Falk, "The Resilient Farm and Homestead: An Innovative Permaculture and Whole Systems Design Approach" (2013)

• Bill Mollison, "Permaculture: A Designers' Manual" (1988)

• Sepp Holzer, "Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: A Practical Guide to Small-Scale, Integrative Farming and Gardening" (2010)

• Eliot Coleman, "The New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener" (Latest edition 2018)

• John Seymour, "The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It" (Latest edition 2009, Japanese translation: "Complete Edition: The Book of Self-Sufficiency," Studio Tuck Creative)

• Brad Lancaster, "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond" (2013)

• Nigel Palmer, "The Regenerative Grower's Guide to Garden Amendments" (2020)

• Shinji Yotsui, 'Living on Earth, Living with Earth: Self-Sufficiency through Permaculture' (2014)

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