Erasmus

Kakegawa, in Shizuoka Prefecture, is one of the major tea-producing regions of Japan. In fact, the FAO recognized its good work with its traditional semi-natural grassland cultivation system called Chagusaba and granted it the distinction of being a World Agricultural Heritage of Global Importance, a distinction reserved for those agricultural systems with exceptional cultural and ecological value. But that landscape is disappearing: between 2010 and 2020, the number of tea farmers in the city plummeted from 1,400 to fewer than 550, down 60% in just a decade, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan. The particular thing is not the crisis, it is how Japan is solving it: with a trip to the heart of Africa. Why is it important. This case reverses the usual direction of agricultural technical cooperation: it goes from south to north and not the other way around, that is, a Japanese farmer learns in Zambia a philosophy of land use that he later applies successfully in one of the most threatened traditional agricultural systems in Japan. On the other hand, this shift in an industry as traditional as Japanese tea serves as an alternative model to modernize a sector beyond techniques known as subsidies or improvements in market price, but rather to diversify the economic function of the territory. Japanese Erasmus. Japan has an international volunteer program run by JICA called Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers. Since its founding in 1965, more than 50,000 people have participated in it, working in agriculture, health and engineering in developing countries. This is precisely what Hirano Koshi did: in 2012 he was in his early 20s and had little desire to dedicate himself to the family business of growing kiwifruit, so he left Lusaka (Zambia). He returned determined to become a farmer and apply everything he had seen in his African adventure. Context: traditional Japanese tea is in crisis. The decline of the tea sector in Kakegawa is due to a change in consumer habits: ready-to-drink bottled tea available in stores throughout the country is triumphing, but traditional leaf tea is at a minimum, as account Hagita Yoshihirosection head of the city’s tea promotion division. This led to a drop in prices for the producer and, if there is no profitability, business continuity becomes impossible: no one wants to inherit farms that do not rent. According to the FAOthe unviability of small agriculture is not a question of productivity, but of the market structure and lack of diversification in income. Kakegawa is a magnificent example: the tea produced is of world-class quality, but the price received was insufficient to maintain the activity. What he learned in Zambia. What Hirano observed there is that agricultural land was also the center of social life, the plantation was more than just a means of production. His first idea upon returning was to recover the field as a meeting place. The second question a Zambian doctor solved it: “If farmers grow delicious vegetables and people eat well, that becomes the most effective medicine.” Dignifying the profession of farmer is essential for a healthy diet, something that, by the way, science had already shown. The revitalization of the Japanese tea industry. Agrotourism has become one of the great weapons to stop abandonment, or in other words: turning tea fields into an experience. Hirano set up camp on abandoned plots and designed educational programs for students and companies from Tokyo, who come to Kakegawa to learn about the sector. An alternative means of income and generating interest in the territory. In addition, it has served as an incentive to improve the maintenance and conservation of the landscape. Kakegawa’s case is not isolated: it is also in Wazuka (Kyoto) there is a similar tea plantation tourism initiative that is very well received. In parallel, there is another boom that is proving key: that of matcha tea, which goes hand in hand with the revaluation of Japanese tea of ​​certified origin. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan has registered an almost three-fold increase in matcha production by 2023, reaching 4,000 tons compared to 1,500 in 2010. If the world wants more and more matcha, factories need to buy more leaves, so prices put upward pressure at origin and allow farmers to exceed the profitability threshold. In any case, the matcha tea boom points to a fashion and Hirano’s model, without solving the sector’s crisis on its own, does point in the right direction: diversifying income so as not to depend on the market price. In Xataka | Japan’s great technological delay: how it went from being a pioneer in the sector to being frozen in time In Xataka | The tea that was born to stop time now runs against it: the matcha crisis in Japan Cover | Vije Vijendranath and Motoki Tonn