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  • From: Pete Vukovich <pvukovic1@yahoo.com>
  • To: Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] For the love of farming
  • Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 10:47:42 -0700 (PDT)

The article here is written by Wendell Berry, I thought it might be pertinent to the list because it refers to the wall street journal article on teaching young people to farm in japan. His perspective is interesting as usual.


http://farmingmagazine.net/articles.htm


How great an embarrassment this may be is suggested by
a recent article in The Wall Street Journal about Japan’s effort
to “job-train” unemployed urban young people to be farmers.
This is a serious, and even an urgent, effort. “Policy makers,”
the article says, “are hoping newly unemployed young people
will help revive Japan’s dwindling farm population…‘If they
can’t find workers over the next several years, Japan’s
agriculture will disappear,’ says Kazumasa Iwata, a
government economist and former deputy governor of the
Bank of Japan.” But this effort is falling significantly short of
success, because “many young people end up returning to
cities, unable to adjust to life in the countryside.” To their
surprise, evidently, farming involves hard work, long hours,
and getting dirty—not to mention skills that city-bred people
don’t have. Not to mention the necessity to love farm work if
you are going to keep at it.
Even so, the prospect for reviving agriculture in Japan is
brighter than in the United States. In Japan, six percent of the
population is still farming, as opposed to one or two percent
of our people. And in Japan, as opposed to the United StatesHow great an embarrassment this may be is suggested by
a recent article in The Wall Street Journal about Japan’s effort
to “job-train” unemployed urban young people to be farmers.
This is a serious, and even an urgent, effort. “Policy makers,”
the article says, “are hoping newly unemployed young people
will help revive Japan’s dwindling farm population…‘If they
can’t find workers over the next several years, Japan’s
agriculture will disappear,’ says Kazumasa Iwata, a
government economist and former deputy governor of the
Bank of Japan.” But this effort is falling significantly short of
success, because “many young people end up returning to
cities, unable to adjust to life in the countryside.” To their
surprise, evidently, farming involves hard work, long hours,
and getting dirty—not to mention skills that city-bred people
don’t have. Not to mention the necessity to love farm work if
you are going to keep at it.
Even so, the prospect for reviving agriculture in Japan is
brighter than in the United States. In Japan, six percent of the
population is still farming, as opposed to one or two percent
of our people. And in Japan, as opposed to the United States
policy makers and economists seem to be aware of the
existence of agriculture. They even think that agriculture
may be a good thing for a nation of eaters to have.





  • [Livingontheland] For the love of farming, Pete Vukovich, 08/07/2009

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