To My Fellow Aspiring Farmers

It has been a while. I have been traveling to many different places.

I have had the opportunity to learn from various people, including farmers, hunters, and pioneers in places like Himeji, Nishinomiya, Ayabe, Maizuru, and Aomori.

Currently, I am in the middle of searching for a place to relocate.

As the title suggests, this time I would like to offer a little bit of advice for those who are currently working but aiming to become farmers, or for those who are interested in agriculture. There are actually a mountain of things you can do using your weekends, paid leave, and long vacations, and I would like to introduce those.

1. Visit farmers

I think it is best to visit as many farmers as possible. As I have written before, at the very least, the people I have met have all been very open-minded.

You can call the producer of the delicious vegetables you bought and ate at a greengrocer, or you can search for farmers you are interested in on social media and contact them.

Also, there is a platform called "WWOOF" that I have used several times, which is a system where farmers (hosts) and users (WWOOFers) exchange "labor" for "room and board." Many things were born there that went beyond that equivalent exchange.

There is no single right way, so please try whatever method interests you.

Truly, there are as many forms of farming as there are farmers. Although I visited about a dozen farmers last year, not even one field was the same or even similar, and I did not meet anyone with the same philosophy (except for some in the natural farming community).

Even if you think you want to do a certain type of farming, the more you go to the field, the higher the resolution of that vision becomes.
I believe that the clearer your goal becomes, the easier it is to take concrete actions toward achieving it.

2. Visit candidate locations

In my case, my conditions were clean water and air, and well-drained soil, so I am searching thoroughly for that.

I recently visited Yamanashi and Nagano Prefectures. For someone living in the Kansai region like me, Shinshu and Koshu had the impression of being places with "vast nature, cool summers, and cold, snowy winters," but when I actually went there, it was a completely different story (as is to be expected).

The land is vast, and there were many different faces in every direction. Even within the same city or town, there is a lot of information that you can only know or feel by going there, such as temperature, snowfall, sunshine hours, wind patterns, the degree of damage from wildlife, soil and water pollution levels, the progress of depopulation, and areas where land prices are soaring versus areas where depopulation is advancing.

I cannot afford to spend much money, so I am managing by making full use of LCCs, night buses, and Airbnb (laughs).

3. Weekend Farming

In recent years, I feel that there has been an increase in rental farms operated through public-private partnerships as part of efforts to utilize abandoned farmland.

I was involved in rice and vegetable cultivation through 'farm support' at a farm I got to know, and feeling the process of crops growing throughout the year up close was very meaningful and, I believe, extremely helpful for forming an image of becoming a farmer myself.

I didn't have the experience of growing crops entirely on my own, but I still wish I had done so.

Although they were simple tasks, I think most of what I did throughout the year is not impossible to do even while working.

In my case, the physical and mental strain was so high that it was difficult to continue my previous job, so I ended up doing this after resigning, but I don't think that is the case for most people, so I hope this will be of some help.

There is a limit to what I can tell you, but please feel free to ask anything in the comments section.

Now, I will do my best to find a place to relocate.

Let's Farm☺︎

-Postscript-
There are also hurdles regarding Article 3 of the Farmland Act, but I feel that the perspective changes once you are on the ground.