【Feature: The Present State of Regional Migration】 Rural Areas are a Treasure Trove of jitsugaku (science) — From Starting a Business in Fukushima and Living in Two Regions with Tokyo

2021/07/05

Kunimi Town is located at the northernmost tip of Fukushima Prefecture, where the fertile clay soil of the Abukuma River basin brings rich blessings. Fruit trees are the main industry, and the production volume of peaches ranks first in the country for a town or village.

The author founded a company in this town of Kunimi in 2017. It was a treasure trove of "jitsugaku (science)."

I was born and raised in Tokyo, and after graduating from university, I joined the Secretariat of the House of Representatives to work closer to the political scene, which I had been interested in since my student days. I was assigned to the Foreign Affairs Research Office, a department that researches Official Development Assistance (ODA) and various treaties, where I worked for about two years. After that, I transferred to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, where I was involved in measures such as the Industrial Competitiveness Enhancement Act and corporate governance. Later, I moved to the Japan Research Institute, Limited (JRI) to gain experience at a company closer to the field. At JRI, I was involved in regional revitalization across the country, working on tourism promotion and reconstruction projects.

However, after entering the workforce, I struggled with the conflict between "social status" and a "sense of emptiness." The year I became a national civil servant was 2010. The Great East Japan Earthquake occurred just as I was entering my second year of work. Images of the tsunami, the nuclear power plant, and the people being evacuated were shown on the television at my workplace. Although I had aspired to be a national civil servant to "be of use to society," I regretted my inability to do anything. I also felt that I lacked the ability to do something significant yet. Therefore, I first focused on performing the work in front of me more perfectly than anyone else and being recognized in the workplace. By the time I realized it, I had become dependent on "others" for my own evaluation axis. Later, I moved to JRI to face the field steadily and be of use to society while learning without depending on the evaluation of others, but there I struggled with the gap between the company's thinking and my own. At JRI, I requested and handled many reconstruction projects for the Great East Japan Earthquake, but the source of funding was, of course, "taxes." I was tormented by guilt as I faced the reality that when the money ran out, the relationship ended.

Then, in August 2017, while keeping my home in Tokyo, I founded a company called "Hito-Bito Co., Ltd." in Kunimi Town, Fukushima Prefecture. I might no longer be able to do things on a grand scale, but I decided to develop a business that keeps its feet on the ground, faces the local people steadily, and balances the resolution of social issues with economic profit.

First, I thought it was necessary to organize the essential issues of the region. When I first started the company, I had no business plan, and I listed every conceivable business purpose in the articles of incorporation. I listened to various people while helping with farm work. There, I realized the reality that "valuable resources" were actually being discarded or not utilized. So, I decided to develop new businesses that utilize these "wasteful regional resources."

Kunimi Town is a peach-producing area, but the first thing that surprised me was the "information asymmetry between the production area and the consumption area." In the production area, for example, "beautiful and large peaches" are perceived as "valuable," and the sorting criteria are set up that way, so small or slightly bad-looking ones are discarded. In Kunimi Town, about 3,000 tons of peaches are produced annually, but in a low year, 10%, and in a high year, 40% become non-standard products, which are discarded or bought at low prices for processing.

I learned that behind this is a complex multi-stage distribution structure from the production area to the consumer. For example, until fresh produce reaches the consumer from the production area, there is a complex structure involving producers, collection and shipping stages, intermediate wholesalers, wholesalers/trading participants, trading companies, wholesale companies, and logistics companies. As a result, the distance from production to consumption becomes long, leading to deterioration in freshness and taste, a low-margin/high-volume structure due to heavy commission additions, a decrease in the attractiveness of working, and differences in value standards due to information asymmetry between upstream and downstream.

Certainly, during the era of population growth, it was efficient to distribute products by dividing them into grades based on such sorting criteria from the perspective of stable food supply and sales at mass retailers. However, in the current era of population decline and diversifying needs, I began to question whether there is necessarily no need for "slightly bad-looking items" or "slightly small items," rather than just the criteria that have been considered valuable until now.

Also, I realized how hard it is to produce a single peach. Three years after planting a peach tree, you prune the branches, pick the buds, and after the flowers bloom and fall, you remove the small fruits that will become peaches. Throughout the year, across the seasons, farm work is carried out by "human hands" during the growth process of the tree until the day of harvest. According to the climate of that year and the weather of that day, necessary manual work is added at each moment, and each peach is carefully raised. I didn't want to waste a single one.

Therefore, I decided to challenge myself to build a new system that is not this complex multi-stage distribution structure, and to create a structure that distributes peaches to where they are needed, including those that were previously considered "non-standard." I hit countless walls, such as how to lower logistics and material costs and how to set up operations so as not to burden producers, and I was often told by those around me that it was "difficult" or "impossible." However, there is never "100% impossible" in the world, and I thought about "how to make it possible" one by one and improved. As a result, not only did the affordable non-standard products sell, but regular products also sold well due to a synergistic effect. When I talk about this, I often receive questions about relationships with local agricultural organizations, such as "Do you compete with the JA (Japan Agricultural Cooperatives)?" However, we have no intention of competing at all and aim for "coexistence and co-prosperity" in the region. This business of handling non-standard fruit is only possible because the JA and the Date Fruit Agricultural Cooperative are firmly and stably sending Fukushima's delicious fruit nationwide through joint selection. We are taking on the "parts that are not being fully addressed" and the "parts that need rapid response," such as information dissemination, within the existing system. While exchanging various opinions with the JA and the Date Fruit Agricultural Cooperative, we are moving forward step by step in the same direction for the sake of the region. It is often said that "people in Tokyo are rich," but not everyone living in Tokyo is wealthy. By delivering affordable items from the production area, I want to make fruit feel familiar to everyone, including children, and work together to create a scene where Fukushima's fruit is on the daily dining table.

One of the specialties of Kunimi Town is a dried persimmon called "Anpo-gaki." The astringent persimmons (Hiratanenashi-gaki and Hachiya-gaki) that serve as the material for Anpo-gaki are also cultivated with diligent care, just like peaches. After harvesting, the stems are left, the calyx is removed, the skin is peeled, and they are fumigated with sulfur to prevent mold and discoloration. They are then hung on strings and air-dried in a drying area for about 40 to 50 days until the moisture content reaches about 50%. This is how "Anpo-gaki," which is thick, soft, and sweet like yokan, is completed. The Anpo-gaki producers we deal with are kind and honest people. They face agriculture with a sincere attitude and spend a lot of time and effort producing Anpo-gaki. However, due to the aging of producers and labor shortages, some of the persimmons they have worked hard to cultivate cannot be fully harvested, leading to no income, and for various reasons, it has become a specialty that does not make a profit. So, I focused on the utilization of "persimmon peels," an unused resource that had been discarded in the manufacturing process of Anpo-gaki. First, I read through all kinds of materials about "persimmons" and "persimmon peels" and studied by listening to farmers and researchers. As a result, I learned that in the past, people used to dry Anpo-gaki peels to make snacks for children, and I discovered the effects, benefits, and scientific evidence of persimmons. So, I decided to extract ingredients from persimmon peels to create the organic cosmetics I like. It took three years until I was satisfied with everything from the extraction method to component analysis, formulation, scent, texture, and efficacy testing. Then, in January 2020, I was able to launch the organic delicate zone care brand (Tomorrow I will climb a persimmon tree).

Behind the development, in addition to improving regional income by utilizing unused resources, is my own past experience of falling ill. From my time as a national civil servant to my time as a consultant, I spent busy days without rest, and it was common for work to extend late into the night. Although I felt it was rewarding, it put a considerable burden on both my body and mind. What I realized while spending such days was that "it is important to have room in your heart and time." I began to feel that I wanted to create products that would serve as an opportunity for women who, like me, tend to work too hard, to look back at themselves. During the development of the products, I experienced pregnancy and childbirth. To be honest, I was bewildered by the hormonal imbalances and changes in motivation that I could not control during pregnancy, and after giving birth, I felt anxious about my body being different from before childbirth amidst unfamiliar childcare.

is a delicate zone care brand created with the wish to be an ally to all women. There are many women who take on everything—work, housework, childcare—by themselves. "The delicate zone is a barometer for knowing your own heart and body." When the balance of the autonomic nervous system or female hormones is disrupted due to poor lifestyle or stress, it also appears as symptoms in the delicate zone. Therefore, through delicate zone care, I want to create opportunities for women to care for their minds and bodies, noticing changes such as whether they are overextending themselves or if there are any physical ailments, so they can lead a life more true to themselves.

In this way, things in the region that were previously considered "valueless" can turn into modern "treasures" when we trace back through history and research and re-examine them with a new perspective.

By starting a company in Kunimi Town, there was a major change in my "values." I would like to introduce some examples.

① Gratitude for Everyday Life

As a member of a generation that grew up in an era where the sight of many agricultural products lined up in supermarkets was taken for granted, I assumed that food was something that could naturally be obtained if you paid money. However, immediately after the Great East Japan Earthquake, food disappeared from Tokyo. I remember being stunned at the House of Representatives Members' Office Building at the time. Food is "made by someone," "carried by someone," and "someone sets up a shop so it can be purchased."

Mr. and Mrs. Suzuki, peach farmers in Kunimi Town, spare no effort to make delicious peaches. Agricultural products are possible only through careful work by human hands, not just the power of nature. Even in the same Kunimi Town, with the same soil, same climate, and same variety, the taste changes depending on the producer who grows them. Even so, the two of them say firmly, "The sun (Otento-sama) is growing them."

"The difficult part is that we humans don't completely understand the relationship between the sun and the trees. Peaches and persimmons are made by the sun. When the flowers fall and the leaves come out, the sun hits the leaves, photosynthesis occurs, nutrients go to the roots, the roots suck nutrients from the soil of the field, and the tree and fruit grow to become delicious fruit. At that time, for example, the farmer's job is to prune so that the sun hits the leaves." I respect their humble attitude that "nature" is the main character and the farmer only supports it.

The work and lives of the two are with the turning seasons and the sun. In the winter, they are out in the fields doing farm work from 8:00 AM until around 5:00 PM when the sun sets, and in the summer, from 4:00 AM until 11:00 AM when the sun has fully risen.

We are able to eat every day thanks to rich nature and human effort and technology. Meeting Mr. and Mrs. Suzuki reminded me to have feelings of gratitude for things that are easily forgotten in daily life.

② The Weight of a Single Yen

When I was a salaried employee, it was natural to receive a salary as compensation for labor. Even in my work, I didn't worry about "one yen" and was struggling with much larger budgets. However, when you become independent, a salary doesn't come in just because you worked. A huge budget isn't suddenly handed to you either. Yes, during my time as a salaried employee, I had never struggled to earn a single yen.

I wrote that our company started by building the peach distribution mentioned above, but we couldn't build logistics from the start, so at first, I was selling peaches by hand on the streets of Tokyo. It may only be one yen, but I still never forget the "weight of that one yen" and my gratitude to the customers who purchase and the farmers who trust and trade with us every day.

③ The Essence of jinkan kosai (society)

In my previous life as a salaried employee, jinkan kosai (society) was of course necessary, but logic and legitimacy were required within a narrow society with the same values and thought patterns. Naturally, logic is necessary even after becoming independent, but the base of the ability required in the region is ultimately the individual's humanity. In particular, for someone coming from outside the region, economic rational judgments like "I'll sell because it's profitable" are almost never made; instead, "trust" becomes the prerequisite, as in "I'll sell because I trust you." I think the essence is the same in any business, but for someone from outside the region, it is incredibly difficult to build this trust. Since it is not about logic, there is no point in overthinking it, so I consciously tried to relax and be my honest self by "not telling lies." It's a strange thing. It is incomparably more comfortable than my days as a salaried employee when I was concerned about how others saw me or their evaluations. My way of speaking, expressions, and interactions happen naturally as I am, without even being conscious of "making jinkan kosai (society) active." I have come to feel a "sense of happiness" in my relationships with others.

Finally, I would like to briefly explain why I have chosen a two-hub lifestyle—with the company in Fukushima and my home in Tokyo—without "rooting myself in the land."

The first point is that in order to demonstrate value as a company—that is, to do something meaningful for Fukushima—it is necessary to quickly grasp the needs and current situation of Tokyo and other consumption areas where information and people gather, and to take action quickly and flexibly. However, this is only possible because of the employees who are firmly rooted locally, and I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart.

The second point is that if I stay in one place, I tend to be easily influenced by that environment, and my perspective tends to narrow accordingly. It can be said that I have adaptability, but conversely, it means I end up living according to that environment, becoming trapped by the evaluations and value standards within it, and by the time I realize it, it has become difficult to view myself objectively. A multi-hub lifestyle is not necessarily the "correct answer," but given my personality and characteristics, this way of living feels comfortable at the moment. That is why I strongly wish to give back to society the knowledge I have gained through living in multiple locations.