We are currently promoting the "Three Living Together" program and the
above
mentioned educational approach to children is, in fact, incorporated into
this program. One of
the "three living together" components is living with the next
generation. This simply means
living with children. In real terms, it means that we, the agricultural
practitioners, take the
initiative to provide an environment where children's life and schooling
consist of certain
agricultural elements, such as school practice farms.
The second component is living with consumers where we provide local,
fresh and
safe food, build citizen communal farms, set up farmers' markets etc.
Recently, what has been
called "green tourism" (see footnote below) has become very popular and
through this program
consumers experience life in rural agricultural communities over a lengthy
period of time. This
experience is particularly useful for urban citizens because they are
directly exposed to the
beauty of rural life through personal agricultural experience.
The third aspect of the movement is living with Asia. Both the
Japanese and other Asian
peoples share common living traditions in the Asiatic monsoon climate. We
all basically depend
on rice planting, agricultural communities are scattered in small units,
family based, very small
scale farming and difficulties in managing such small scale business
operations. This is the
direct opposite to the large scale, business oriented style of American
agricultural operations.
In Asia, there are a number of nations which still suffer from severe
starvation. Collaboration
with other Asian nations and developing stronger ties with them are our
sincere wishes.
Note:
"Green Tourism," a type of tourism, where urban dwellers stay
for a lengthy
period in agricultural communities, developed rapidly in Europe during the
1980s. In Japan,
the government passed a "leisure in agricultural community" law which
promoted certain types
of infrastructure to enable urban dwellers to stay in agricultural and
fishery communities.
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