Fresh blood gives new direction to family farms

As far as Yusuke Miyaji was concerned, his family's hog farming business typified all the most undesirable aspects of work: It was demanding, dirty, uncool, smelly, unprofitable and, perhaps worst of all, unappealing to prospective partners.

So when he graduated from prestigious Keio University, he was determined to start his own business in a "cool" industry and, moreover, to be president.

He took a job at a major temp agency in the hope of becoming an entrepreneur after learning business on the job.

Almost 10 years later, Miyaji, 31, has achieved his dream, although not in the way he would once have imagined. He is president of Miyajibuta (Miyaji pork Co.), a stock company he and his family founded in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, in 2006.

The Miyaji family farm now sells its pork directly to consumers by mail order, and in shipments to a wholesaler.

Miyaji has also formed a group of sons and daughters who have succeeded their family farming businesses. His next goal is to establish "new 3K" farming--kakko yokute, kando ga atte, kasegeru (cool, moving and profitable), instead of the traditional 3K job of kitsui, kitanai, kiken (demanding, dirty and dangerous).

What attracted Miyaji to the family farm he once shunned was the praise lavished by a friend on his father's pork.

The friend wanted to know which stores sold the "delicious" Miyaji farm pork, but he wasn't able to say. At the time, the farm's pork was sold without any distinguishing marks, so there was no way of picking the meat out in retail stores.

The exchange was Miyaji's first direct contact with a "consumer" of his family farm products. He was impressed.

His father, Masayoshi, 62, has traditionally raised his pigs in groups of siblings only and given each group a much larger pig pen space than is normal--so they can grow in a healthy way in a stress-free environment.

The farm produces about 1,200 pigs a year, roughly half the national average. But the meat from pigs raised with such special care was treated just like any other in the distribution process.

While he was studying to be an entrepreneur, Miyaji also read books on the farming business. He decided it would be better if farmers were involved in distribution, not just production.

Then they could determine the price of their products themselves; they could also pursue profitable farming while getting firsthand feedback from consumers, he thought.

His father vehemently opposed his suggestions, but Miyaji eventually persuaded him, and returned to the family farm four years ago.

His first challenge was to find a wholesaler who would deal with the Miyaji pork separately from other meat.

He held barbecue parties every month in a neighborhood orchard to promote Miyaji pork and its mail-order system by word of mouth. He started with friends and acquaintances; participants gradually increased.

To avoid the risk of excess inventories, he made up a system of buying back only the amount for mail-order delivery from the wholesaler.

His family set up the stock company three years ago. Although Miyaji's annual income has not yet reached 4.5 million yen, the amount he earned as a company employee, he said sales had doubled in the past two years.

Mushroom grower Kaori Nukui, 31, of Iruma, Saitama Prefecture, is another member of the Noka no Kosegare (farming family offspring's) Network that Miyaji founded last October.

Nukui was also a would-be entrepreneur. She worked for a venture business in central Tokyo before returning to her family's shiitake mushroom farm in April 2008. Unlike an increasing number of mushroom-growing businesses, which use sawdust beds to cultivate the fungi, the Nukui family farm grows its mushrooms on 43,000 logs. It also produces famed Sayama tea.

Nukui decided that by emphasizing her family's traditional bed-log cultivation method, and combining that with Internet sales, she could create a new business for the family's flavorous mushrooms.

The family's Nukui-en farm now sells its shiitake directly to five restaurants in Tokyo, and also accepts orders online.

Nukui does not regard her new job as special. The farm is only an hour's train ride from central Tokyo, so she can still meet friends and go to beauty salons in fashionable areas such as Ginza and Omotesando.

She says her future husband does not need to be involved in the farming business because the farm already has its own employees.

"Farming is not 'my family's job' but 'my job,'" she says. "I hope farming will one day be thought of as an ordinary job choice."

Miyaji formed the "Kosegare" (literally, little sons) network out of concern for the plight of farming households. The number of those making a certain level of annual sales fell nearly 40 percent over 20 years to 1.96 million in 2005.

Twenty young farmers and entrepreneurs joined the network at its inception.

"The shortest, quickest way to reform Japan's farming is to get 'kosegare' offspring back to their farming families as successors," Miyaji says. To achieve the new 3K farming, he says, is important for that purpose.

While network members emphasize the importance of direct contact with consumers through e-mail magazines and sales events, they are faced with a tough challenge: the farming techniques so important for creating the products they sell are still, for the most part, understood and overseen by their aging parents.

Takeaki Yagioka, 32, until recently an IT firm worker, now grows strawberries in his family farm in Mito.

When he asks his father Yuichi, 61, how much water he should give, the response is frustratingly vague: "Just until I feel I don't like to give any more."

The father opens and closes strawberry house windows when he "feels the weather is changing."

The long-time farmer makes his decisions based on intuition, honed through years of experience at judging winds, sun, temperature, humidity and other conditions.

Yagioka closely watches his father's every move; but he is convinced it would be impossible to reduce his knowledge into a manual.

Miyaji is especially concerned because the average age of these core farmers is nearing the mid-60s.

"Once those parents have retired, it will be impossible to hand down their skills," Miyaji says. "The next five years will be crucial."(IHT/Asahi: October 6,2009)