VOX POPULI: Soichi Yamashita knew the value farmers provided even decades ago
The perfect time to face this crucial question head-on would have been when rice disappeared from practically all stores from last year through this year—a phenomenon that came to be dubbed 'Reiwa no Kome Sodo' or 'Reiwa rice shortage.'
The crisis seems to have been somewhat allayed since the government began releasing stockpiled rice, but that's nothing more than a temporary fix, really.
Unfortunately, the timeless and universal adage of 'the danger past and God forgotten' is apparently firmly ingrained in human nature.
Once rice prices began coming down, it appears that people lost interest.
I wonder what farmer-writer Soichi Yamashita would have said about this situation, were he alive today.
He died on July 10, 2022. He was 86.
I can almost hear him lament, 'Don't you get it yet? In times of emergency, you people are the ones who are going to starve.'
Yamashita consistently asserted that Japan's agricultural issues are not the problems of farmers, but the problems of consumers who have no means of production.
Born a farmer's son in Saga Prefecture in 1936, Yamashita inherited his family's terraced rice paddies and farmland.
He was in his 30s when the government's rice production curtailment policy came into effect. This forced him to switch to mikan farming, but the mikan market tanked due to the import liberalization of oranges.
Still, Yamashita resolved to remain a farmer.
'The land I'm working on has been entrusted to me by my ancestors,' he said. 'It's mine, but it's also not mine.'
I believe that is how many farmers feel. But they obviously have their limits.
In the last five years, the population of rice farmers decreased by as much as 30 percent and the average age of rice paddy owners reached 70.
The 'Koe' (letters to the editor) section of The Asahi Shimbun recently ran a comment by a man who sold his paddies when a person he had relied on for years to manage the paddies told him bluntly: 'Rice farming doesn't pay.'
This could hardly be an isolated case.
Yamashita once wrote that farmers keep people alive by growing farm produce. And he continued, 'It's really unbearable that in our era, those who are working to keep people alive are themselves unable to survive.'
Those words were written more than 30 years ago.
—The Asahi Shimbun, July 10
* * *
Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Asahi Shimbun
5 days ago
- Asahi Shimbun
VOX POPULI: Steeped in time, umeboshi offer delicious gifts to the future
Ume plums dry in the sun under a blue sky on the morning of Aug. 7, 2019, in Tanabe, Wakayama Prefecture. (Asahi Shimbun file photo) When Japanese writer Tsutomu Mizukami (1919–2004) was 9, he entered a Zen temple in Kyoto as a 'kozo'—a novice monk who had taken the first step into a monastic life but was not yet fully ordained. There, he learned how to heat water, build a fire, use a broom and prepare tea. Morning and evening, in the midst of these daily routines, he was taught the spirit of 'gyojitsu'—a Zen approach to practice that sees every moment of daily life, not just seated meditation (zazen), as part of spiritual training. Through mindful, deliberate action, this way of living cultivates inner discipline and can lead to sudden, spontaneous moments of 'satori,' or awakening. In 'Tsuchi wo Kurau Hibi' (Days of eating earth), Mizukami wrote that he also learned how to make umeboshi—pickled and salted ume plums—at the temple. After being bathed in the rains of the rainy season, the ume were carefully washed and then pickled in salt. When the summer 'doyo' period arrived—a transitional stretch of about 20 days before the start of autumn—they were laid out to dry under the summer sun. At night, they were left outside. 'Ume like the night dew,' the 'osho'—a trained and accomplished monk—who served as his mentor used to say. Many years passed, and by the time Mizukami was approaching 60, the monk had passed away. One day, Mizukami had the opportunity to reunite with the monk's daughter. As they reminisced about the past, she offered him some umeboshi, saying they were from a batch that had been in her family for decades. In fact, the fruits had been pickled the year her parents were married—53 years earlier. 'I silently and respectfully accepted them, overcome with emotion,' he wrote. Late that night, at home, he placed one in his mouth. At first, the taste was bitter and sharp. But gradually, it softened—spreading gently across his tongue and transforming into a sweetness like nectar. He shed tears for that umeboshi, which had endured for 53 years. Umeboshi endure. Their long life gives rise to memories—and perhaps even stir thoughts of a distant future. One day, someone will taste ume pickled this year and wince at the sharp sourness. The thought alone brings a quiet sense of joy. July 19 marks 'Doyo no Ushi no Hi,' the midsummer Day of the Ox during the doyo period. With the return of the summer heat, we may once again see the familiar sight of ume drying under the sun. Haiku poet Teijo Nakamura (1900–1988) captured the essence of this season in a single verse: 'Ume drying in the sun/ while people hide in the shade.' With the blazing sunlight arrives the season of umeboshi making. —The Asahi Shimbun, July 18 * * * Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.
Tokyo Weekender
15-07-2025
- Tokyo Weekender
Vatican Returns '26 Martyrs of Japan' Portraits to Japan After 94 Years
Two portraits of Christian martyrs, once gifted to the Pope in 1931, have returned to Japan for the first time in 94 years. Now on display at Osaka's Catholic Tamatsukuri Church, these rare works — on loan from the Vatican Museums — mark a long-awaited homecoming and a chance for the public to reconnect with a little-known chapter of Japan's past. List of Contents: A Seven-Year Effort of Restoration and Return Related Posts A Seven-Year Effort of Restoration and Return The Portraits of the 26 Martyrs of Japan were painted by Seikyo Okayama, a Catholic artist from Hiroshima and student of master painter Takeuchi Seiho. Okayama spent nearly 15 years completing the series, which depicts 26 Japanese Christians crucified in Nagasaki in 1597 under the anti-Christian edicts of warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The believers were marched from Kyoto and Osaka to Nagasaki before their execution. Each hanging scroll, painted with natural mineral pigments on silk, measures approximately 190 by 75 centimeters. The full set was gifted to Pope Pius XI and kept in the Vatican, where the scrolls suffered damage over the years due to differences in climate and storage conditions. The fragile state of the works spurred Japanese Cardinal Thomas Aquino Manyo Maeda to launch a seven-year effort to restore and bring them home. Negotiations with the Vatican culminated in May, when it was decided two restored scrolls would be sent to Japan for exhibition. The two portraits on display depict St. Francis Kichi, a carpenter captured near modern-day Koshien in Hyogo Prefecture, and St. James Kisai, a catechist who taught at a Jesuit church in Osaka. Alongside the originals, full-size replicas of all the martyrs are also on view. For Cardinal Maeda, the exhibition is more than just an art event. 'I believe many people still don't know who the 26 martyrs were,' he told The Asahi Shimbun . 'I hope they'll learn this history and reflect on religious freedom and the dignity of life.' The exhibition runs through September 15. Entry is free, and is open on Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon and 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Official website Related Posts The Story of Japan's Hidden Christians Discover Nagasaki: In the Footsteps of Japanese Christians 'A Great Blow to the Church': Japan Mourns the Passing of Pope Francis
Asahi Shimbun
15-07-2025
- Asahi Shimbun
VOX POPULI: Living abroad was miserable, but one thing made it bearable
Philosopher Tomonobu Imamichi (1922-2012), a graduate of the University of Tokyo, was around 30 years old when he became a university lecturer in France in the 1950s. Japan was still poor then and so were the Japanese people. With his low pay, Imamichi struggled to make ends meet in the European country. There was a bistro he frequented for supper. Before payday, he always ordered only an omelette because it was the cheapest item on the menu. But he would 'explain' to the waitress that he was 'not really hungry' or 'just tired.' One day, the waitress wordlessly placed on his table enough bread for two people. When he tried to pay for the double portion, the waitress refused to charge the extra: She put her finger to her mouth, signaling him to say nothing. 'That's all there was to it, but recalling it still brings tears to my eyes,' Imamichi wrote in a book he authored late in his life, titled 'Imamichi Tomonobu Waga Tetsugaku wo Kataru' ("Tomonobu Imamichi: Discussing my philosophy"). On an especially cold day, he also recalled, the waitress brought him onion gratin, saying she got his order wrong. How warming the dish was, and how delicious. He was brought to tears. Life in France was miserable and he went through many unpleasant experiences. But because of those memories mentioned above, he 'just could not hate France.' An act of human kindness is all the more touching when one encounters it in a foreign country. How does present-day Japan treat foreigners? Am I hearing too many hate-filled words being hurled at non-Japanese people, essentially telling them to just go away? I am deeply troubled by this present reality of humans, living their ordinary lives in this country despite their diverse nationalities, turning against one another with malice and fanning mutual fear. Imamichi had this to say in his book: 'Act with a beautiful heart. The world will become all the more beautiful for that, and the beauty will be passed on to posterity.' —The Asahi Shimbun, July 15 * * * Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.
