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You're a self-described 35-year-old "lowbrow writer" facing shrinking outlets for your articles and no assurance things will get any better. So you look around to see what other sorts of paying jobs are out there and discover one sector presently hiring is agriculture.
Actually, writes Hiroshi Suzuki in the monthly Takarajima (November), there are several government programs to encourage young people -- no, make that anybody, irrespective of age -- to work the land. For instance, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in 2006 introduced a program called "Challenge! Farm School."
Job-seekers who visit the home page of the "Hello Work" employment office operated by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare can click on a link called "No-rin-gyo-gyo wo yatte miyo" (try your hand at farming, forestry and fishing) (http://www.mhlw.go.jp/topics/2003/04/tp0417-1.html).
Girding his loins, Suzuki signed up for a 3-day trial training session, and in June arrived at a large organic farm on the slopes of Mt Yatsugatake in Yamanashi Prefecture.
Suzuki's work began the next morning from 5 a.m., when he sleepily trudged out to the potato fields. Being an organic farm where weeds and bugs thrive, the job was all the more taxing, and his first chore was uprooting weeds he swears stood as tall as he did.
Afterwards he crawled through the mud on his hands and knees digging up row after row of tubers, filling up plastic boxes that had to be lugged to a waiting pickup truck.
It was a hot, dirty job, and the potatoes were damn heavy. After years of benign neglect, Suzuki's body was aching after the first 30 minutes. After a lunch break, he weeded a burdock field under a blazing sun until it turned dark around 7 p.m.
The trainees got only two hours to eat and relax before lights-out at 9:00 p.m.
Awakened at 4 the next morning, Suzuki ached from head to foot.
"I've done a lot of studying but still only know a fraction of what a farmer knows," a "farming otaku" in his late 20s employed at a cosmetics firm told Suzuki. "An amateur who tries to take up farming this late in life won't succeed."
At the end of work on the third day, the farm boss gave a talk about the ins and outs of living off the land. The most a farm worker can expect in terms of monthly compensation, he told them, would be about 120,000 to 130,000 yen. Which may explain why only one in Suzuki's group of 30 trainees showed any inclination to stick with farming.
"My impression after the three days was that a person could absolutely never succeed at agriculture unless he had a passionate devotion to the work," Suzuki writes. "Anyone who just sees it as one possible option because he doesn't have a real job is doomed to failure."
For rudderless people like Suzuki, neither city nor countryside would seem to offer a safe haven. The three-day session left him with little but fatigue, stiff muscles and a sense of dazed anxiety.
© Japan Today
11 Comments
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kokorocloud
I've also heard it's best when you've been raised from a young age to farm, like the "farming otaku" was saying. It is definitely not a job for the faint of heart (or weak of body, haha). Definitely helps to have devotion and passion for the job as well, though I would think that's important for any job where you really have to work yourself to the bone to get results.
GW
the pay aint great but you probably never have to pay taxes, food is mostly free, can usually sell a bit on the side to make a little more. It sure is no get rich quick scheme, but can be a good honest way of living.
I worked farms as a teenager & grow a bunch of my own stuff here as well as take care of a large yard, sometimes it sucks but its better than vegging(haha) on the couch!
Beelzebub
I read somewhere than the national average age of farm households in Japan was around 75, which makes me wonder where Japanese are going to be getting their daikon et al in a few years. Obviously it's not going to be from urbanites who go out to Yamanashi on a whim at harvest time.
30061015
China.
At 43, I grew organics with my family for five years in Hokkaido. Would do it again if I could.
Badsey
This story is sort of short.
Farming is more a lifestyle than a job. And as with anything you must enjoy it.
Fukuoka technique is very good for the lazy -and I am a believer in the power of mulch.
Future- people will grow more of their own food and plants/trees keep your house shaded in the summer.
Klein2
One thing that the writer dodges is the degree to which a modern lifestyle actually CONFLICTS with physical labor in general, and with agricultural work in particular.
Trying to build a lifestyle doing part of this and part of that ignores the fact that rain and sunshine and weeds and planting all have their own calendars. Sometimes doing a little bit every day is impossible, so you are stuck with days of heavy labor loads interspersed with days of watching the rain. The obvious problem is that you don't know when those days will be.
The bit about the economics is true. What most people do not realize is that the costs can be extremely low. Risks of a bad crop can be pretty high. Everyone should have a garden, but farming as a business is a poor choice for a young person with ambition. It is certainly possible to earn more money working at McDonald's.
30061015
Few will ever get rich at farming. Its a lifestyle choice for those who have had enough Mcworld.
Smythe
Agree that few of us farmers became rich. It was/is a life-style not only in Japan, but in many parts of the world where farming was a must to survive & a bad year or, in some cases a bad winter, can ruin all you did previously to a maze of money needed to restart again.
jason6
Farming is an industry ripe for massive consolidation just like in North America. Some corp's gonna hire and underpay some foreigners, get some economies of scale, create a supplier stranglehold on the market and get rich. Then people will complain again.
lunchmeat
Then be a butler. Better yet, a doormat.
illsayit
I think the initiative ought to be more on young people investing in land for agriculture. When it is your own land, there is a lot more satisfaction, and not to mention less whinging about a physical workout. Also, it would allow young people to develope their techniques,-even one specialty-so that knowledge of one style of living agriculturally can be gained while they are young and can earn money through other diverse avenues that are more available to younger people, like maccers, or writing.