Alicia Bay Laurel at Roguii Cafe in Okinawa City, Okinawa - July 15, 2012

July 15 live at Roguii Cafe, Okinawa, with Amana band. Doors open at 19:00, show at 19:30. Cafe address: 1663 Yogi, Okinawa City, Okinawa. Hand craft and farmers market at the cafe from 15:00.

More about Alicia at Kim Hughes' post about the holistic practitioner's visit to Tokyo.

TONIGHT - June 22! Greetings From the Earth @ Chikuya Live House, Kunitachi, Tokyo

Greetings From the Earth

Peace Not War Japan

Friday

7:00pm until 11:30pm in UTC+09

Chikyuya Live House, Kunitachi, Tokyo, Japan

☆日本語の詳細が↓↓にあります☆

Come listen to the fabulous music and stories of Alicia Bay Laurel, author of the best-selling 1970 Living On the Earth, who will also be joined by the upbeat grooves of the Inoue Ohana band featuring Hawaiian and reggae style tunes.

An evening of warmth, love and vibrant energy not to be missed!!

Alicia Bay Laurel and Inoue Ohana: ‘Greetings from the Earth’

Friday, June 22nd, 2012

OPEN/START 19:00/20:00

Chikyuya in Kunitachi 地球屋＠国立市

Map　アクセス: http://chikyuya.info/contents/access

Advance Price:　2000円

At the Door: 2500円

☆LIVE

・　INOUE OHANA (Hawaiian/reggae)

・　Alicia Bay Laurel (acoustic folk)

☆TALK

Alicia Bay Laurel

☆DJ

RAS FUKU

Alicia Bay Laurel's full Japan tour schedule:

http://www.aliciabaylaurel.com/2012japantour

Photo/video/highlights from a recent show of hers in Tokyo:

http://tenthousandthingsfromkyoto.blogspot.jp/2012/06/artists-bring-message-of-harmony-spirit.html

アリシア.ベイ.ローレル

１９４９年、整形外科医の父と彫刻家の母の間に生ま れたアリシア.ベイ.ローレル。母の影響で、ボヘミアン的な生き方に憧れた彼女は、 高校卒業後、ヒッチハイクの旅に出ます。そうしてたどり着いたのが、カルフォルニアの北部に あるウィラーズランチ、

いわゆるコミューンでした。 当時ランチには１００人ほどの自由人が、畑を作り、 牛や馬をかって暮らしていました。

電気も水道もない森の中。右も左もわからない彼女 は、少しずつそこでの生活を覚えていきます。そして、ランチでの自分の役割を見つけます。それは得意の絵 と文章で、自然の中で生きる手引書をつくること。 そうしてできあがったのが『地球の上に生きる』です。

小さな森の手引書はたちまちベストセラーに。

ミュー ジシャンとしても活動しており、２０００年に地球

に生き るの音楽編Music from Living on Earth をリリース。

続編に　Living inHawail style がある。

＊Kathie & Keni Inoue (INOUE OHANA)

Keni 井上：７０年代より”南正人”、又バンド”久保 田真琴と夕焼け楽団”その後”サンディーアンドサン セッツ”のギタリストとして活動を開始。その後内外の著名なミュージシャンとのセッションを 経て、現在ソロ活動とバンド"INOUE OHANA"で活動中。

＊Kathie井上：９０年代より作詞作曲活動をして、

サン ディーや内田有紀などに楽曲提供。"Kathie & Keni Inoue"名 義で"Voyage to Paradise"を２００４年に発表。

現在はKeni 井上と日本やハワイのメンバー達と"INOUE OHANA"名義で最新アルバム"Island Blend"をハワイで制作発表。作詞作曲活動と共に"INOUE OHANA"のボーカル＆ウクレレ プレイヤーとして活動中。

http://inoueohana.com/

Uncanny Terrain: Rio+20: Four Fukushima Farmers 福島：その土地に残る意味

Uncanny Terrain:

This video, capturing the diverse views of four Fukushima activist farmers, screens beginning June 16 in the Rio+20 United Nations Sustainable Development Conference, where one of the main subjects of the documentary Uncanny Terrain, Seiji Sugeno, director of the Fukushima Organic Farmers Network, is presenting.

Fukushima Organic Farmers Fight Odds to Continue Livelihood Amidst Radiation’s Unknowns

Filmmakers Junko Kajino and Ed Koziarski with organic farmer Seiji Sugeno in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima

This past January, while most participants at the Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World in Yokohama were angrily demanding that the government relocate endangered Fukushima citizens to safety, a small delegation of organic farmers had a different message to share. They had no intention of leaving their family land, they said, and as long as radiation levels remained within prescribed safety limits, others were urged to continue consuming Fukushima crops in support of the prefecture’s revitalization.

Fast-forward nearly five months. Consumers nationwide remained mistrustful of food grown within Fukushima prefecture, and outrage loomed large against Prime Minister Noda’s likely decision to restart the Ohi nuclear power plant, while a group of Fukushima citizens were calling for criminal charges against the officials responsible for the disaster. Within this social climate, I wondered, had the farmers’ message changed in any way?

To find out, I decided to take a day trip one recent Friday up to Nihonmatsu, located approximately 50 km from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. There, I would accompany documentary filmmakers Junko Kajino and Ed Koziarski on a visit to the farm of Seiji Sugeno, one of the several farmers to be profiled in their upcoming film, “Uncanny Terrain”. 

I recalled that Sugeno, a leader of the Fukushima Organic Farmers Network, had been one of the more staunch bearers of the “stay on the land and continue to eat local” message.

As the three of us made our way through winding roads to Sugeno’s farm, the rolling green fields and gorgeous blooming flowers reminded me of the prefecture's stunning beauty—also prompting me to reflect that Fukushima has inherited the painful legacy of Chernobyl: its name now automatically equated with the nuclear accident itself in the minds of people around the world.

Sugeno was out when we arrived onto his land, whose name translates roughly as the “Playful Cloud Farm”. We found his daughter Mizuho inside the greenhouse, tending to the family’s 1800-some tomato plants.

“Last year after the disaster, people still had hope that things might turn out okay, and most farmers decided to stay here and plant,” she said. “But due to the new restrictions on acceptable radiation levels, nearly half of the farmers in our area have given up and figured it just isn’t worth it to grow their crops this year. It’s really too bad.”

After rolling up in his sunflower oil-powered tractor, Sugeno echoed his daughter’s sentiments. He was adamant about staying on his land this season to plant, he said, despite the extra labor necessary to measure all food for radiation levels and sprinkle zeolite in local rice fields on government order—and despite the possibility that crops from an entire region could be judged unfit for shipping onto the market if even one local field were found to exceed radiation limits.

“This year is really critical, particularly for people who didn’t plant last year,” he said. “If they let their land go for one more season, it may be ruined permanently.”

Both Sugeno and his daughter were honest about the discouragement they sometimes felt regarding what was essentially a lonely battle, but pointed out the strength and encouragement that they received from the relationships that they have created with others around the world following the 3.11 disaster. Mizuho has traveled overseas several times to meet with organic farmers in Thailand and New Zealand, and her father heads shortly to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as a delegate to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development—a forum he most certainly intends to utilize to the fullest in order to share his experience with others.

“Large corporations talk about the future of our world in terms of economics, but the truth is that it is small, sustainable farms like ours that make the most important contribution to biodiversity—with rice fields acting to prevent flooding, for example,” he emphasized. “And it was only after the nuclear accident that this truly became clear to me.”

Sugeno then rolled back out into his fields, while Mizuho took Ed, Junko and myself on a drive through more vibrantly beautiful landscapes to visit the family’s canola farm, which her father had decided to grow for another season after determining that radiation levels in the area were low enough to warrant planting.

After later parting ways with Mizuho, the three of us headed to the local michinoeki, a facility featuring local wares and produce that may be found in many small towns around the country. Sugeno is one of the directors of the Nihonmatsu branch, where radiation detection machinery has been installed in order to make sure that every food item sold falls below the maximum acceptable level of 100 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram, and where residents may also come to be measured by a whole-body counter that can detect existing radiation levels. When we arrived, a television installed at the entrance was repeatedly broadcasting a national television news program whose interviewer was emphasizing the farmers’ struggle to appeal to citizens regarding the safety of the local food.

"For a Fukushima Full of Smiles"

As we hiked later that afternoon in the gorgeous sunshine around the grounds of the Nihonmatsu Castle—which was completely deserted except for our presence—Junko, Ed and I had a chance to chat about the bizarre new post-3.11 world, which seems in a certain sense to have fragmented into various parallel realities, depending upon which news sources people read, and how they might personally be inclined to believe. This was certainly the case in Tokyo—and, I imagined, was likely numerous times more so the case for residents in Fukushima.

While government-mandated maximum safety levels for food stand at 100 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram, many activists, including filmmaker Hitomi Kamanaka, argue strongly that any possible exposure to internal radiation through measures including food consumption should be avoided entirely. As a measure of support for the Fukushima farmers, however, the filmmakers have consumed almost exclusively local food during their most recent two-month stay—explaining that many crops have tended to hover in the area of 20-30 becquerels, which is well within the government-set safety zone.

“Are these levels dangerous? You’ll find any number of opinions on the matter, because frankly, nobody knows,” Junko commented. She pointed out that Aya Marumori, the Executive Health Director of the Citizens’ Radioactivity Measuring Station (and a speaker during a recent event held in Tokyo) visited numerous doctors, who fell into one of two categories: either claiming that radiation was totally harmless, or else that it was completely deadly. “She finally came across one doctor who said: ‘We don’t know.’ And that’s who she decided to trust.”

“Radiation effects will most certainly be one of the long-term aftermaths of the disaster, although—as with Chernobyl—the causality cannot be proven,” added Ed, pointing out that this matter was taken up in-depth within the recent Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ feature issue on low-level radiation. “In addition to this, though, are the other ill health effects such as diabetes and cancers that will result from the existing stress and fear, as well as the social phenomenon of uncertainty. Honestly, no one has any idea how the situation here will continue to play out into the future.”

The Uncanny Terrain blog follows the progress of the film, including Ed's thoughtful piece titled “Would You Stay?” documenting the ways that communities in Fukushima have fragmented following the crisis. The filmmakers are also gratefully accepting donations via Google to help them complete their project, as well as assistance with volunteer translation.

A recent article from the Japan Times also sensitively describes the many complexities that continue to face farmers--and food consumers--in Fukushima following last year's disaster.

--Kimberly Hughes

Food Inc. Director Robert Kenner To Visit Tokyo (May 19 & 21) & Osaka (May 22)

Via  the Consumers Union of Japan:

CUJ is glad to be able to invite US documentary director Robert Kenner to Japan. His film Food Inc. is a great exposure of the way the food industry and especially Monsanto have hijacked farming and food processing, creating a situation where it is almost impossible for consumers to know what we are eating. While the focus is on the US agribusiness, it also applies to practices in many other countries, and the frequent abuse against farmers, food factory workers, animals and the biodiversity on our planet.

Robert Kenner is an Emmy-Award winning film maker. He will participate at three screening events and give talks while in Japan. Everyone is welcome!

Tokyo: May 19 (Sat) 13:30-18:00

Tokyo Women’s Plaza (Omotesando station)

http://www.tokyo-womens-plaza.metro.tokyo.jp/

Entrance Fee: 1,000 Yen

Tokyo: May 21 (Mon) 14:00-16:00

House of Representatives 2nd Bldg, Multi-purpose Hall (1st Floor)

(衆議院第2議員会館 1階 多目的ホール)

Entrance Fee: Free

Osaka: May 22 (Tue) 13:30-17:30

Osaka International House Center

http://www.ih-osaka.or.jp/english/

Entrance Fee: 1,000 Yen

More on Food Inc. from the film's website:

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

Ryukyu Shimpo: Okinawans protest against Tokyo's participation in Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) "Free Trade" Agreement

Via the Ryukyu Shimpo, "Protest rally against Japan's participation in TPP talks":

A representative of the rally pointed out that Japan’s participation in TPP could lead to the elimination of tariffs and the abolition of regulations for medical care, finance and public projects as well as undesirable amendments to these, which could have a great impact on the lives of people in Okinawa and its remote islands. The rally adopted a resolution strongly opposing Japan’s participation in the TPP talks without national debate.

Uncanny Terrain「超自然の大地」: One Year After the Meltdown 震災から１年

Via Uncanny Terrain:

Filmmakers Junko Kajino and Ed M. Koziarski spent five months inside Japan's nuclear contamination zone, living and working with the farmers, researchers and volunteers who have committed themselves to take the nuclear crisis as an opportunity to build a better society.

We're going beyond disaster reporting, to show what it is really like for these people who refuse to bow to devastating odds. Now we need your help to return to Japan and revisit those working on the front lines of the nuclear crisis, as they mark the one-year anniversary and the farmers prepare to plant again.

We need to raise $10,000 by March 31 to cover the cost of traveling to Japan and shooting there through the May planting. Please join us by donating to and sharing our new IndieGoGo campaign. We encourage PayPal contributions because they are tax-deductible, and funds are available to us immediately...

The organic farmers of Fukushima prefecture toiled for 40 years to grow safe, nutritious and delicious crops on their ancestral land while two nuclear power plants in the prefecture helped feed Tokyo's increasingly voracious energy appetite. Since the March 2011 tsunami triggered the meltdown that spread radioactive contamination on much of the lush farmland of Fukushima and eastern Japan, the farmers have been caught between a government in constant denial of the risks of radiation, and outraged citizens who brand the farmers "child murderers" for continuing to cultivate irradiated land.

But the farmers, researchers and volunteers are committed to building a comprehensive monitoring and reporting network to inform citizens about contamination levels in food, air, water and land, so families can make their own informed decisions; and advancing experimental methods to decontaminate soil or prevent crops grown on contaminated soil from absorbing radiation.

Fukushima has demonstrated the need for greater public vigilance to keep all our food and energy producers honest, not just about radiation but about all the potential contaminants that our collective appetites introduce into our bodies and our communities. Please support Uncanny Terrain and help generate dialogue about these vital issues and assure that the struggles of people in Fukushima can stimulate positive change in the world. Thank you!

Please consider donating to this crucial project, at Indiegogo.

The Economics of Happiness: Locally Based Alternatives to the Global Consumer Culture

Many thanks to Anja Light for the head's up on this documentary, website (English, German, Italian and Japanese), and conference (this weekend in Berkeley): The Economics of Happiness:

Economic globalization has led to a massive expansion in the scale and power of big business and banking. It has also worsened nearly every problem we face: fundamentalism and ethnic conflict; climate chaos and species extinction; financial instability and unemployment. There are personal costs too. For the majority of people on the planet, life is becoming increasingly stressful. We have less time for friends and family and we face mounting pressures at work.

The Economics of Happiness describes a world moving simultaneously in two opposing directions. On the one hand, an unholy alliance of governments and big business continues to promote globalization and the consolidation of corporate power. At the same time, people all over the world are resisting those policies, demanding a re-regulation of trade and finance—and, far from the old institutions of power, they’re starting to forge a very different future. Communities are coming together to re-build more human scale, ecological economies based on a new paradigm – an economics of localization.

The film shows how globalization breeds cultural self-rejection, competition and divisiveness; how it structurally promotes the growth of slums and urban sprawl; how it is decimating democracy. We learn about the obscene waste that results from trade for the sake of trade: apples sent from the UK to South Africa to be washed and waxed, then shipped back to British supermarkets; tuna caught off the coast of America, flown to Japan to be processed, then flown back to the US. We hear about the suicides of Indian farmers; about the demise of land-based cultures in every corner of the world.

The second half of The Economics of Happiness provides not only inspiration, but practical solutions. Arguing that economic localization is a strategic solution multiplier that can solve our most serious problems, the film spells out the policy changes needed to enable local businesses to survive and prosper. We are introduced to community initiatives that are moving the localization agenda forward, including urban gardens in Detroit, Michigan and the Transition Town movement in Totnes, UK. We see the benefits of an expanding local food movement that is restoring biological diversity, communities and local economies worldwide. And we are introduced to Via Campesina, the largest social movement in the world, with more than 400 million members.

We hear from a chorus of voices from six continents, including Vandana Shiva, Bill McKibben, David Korten, Samdhong Rinpoche, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Michael Shuman, Zac Goldsmith and Keibo Oiwa. They tell us that climate change and peak oil give us little choice: we need to localize, to bring the economy home. The good news is that as we move in this direction we will begin not only to heal the earth but also to restore our own sense of well-being. The Economics of Happiness challenges us to restore our faith in humanity, challenges us to believe that it is possible to build a better world.

Popcorn Homestead: Early Spring Farmers' Markets in Tokyo

Kichijoji's Earth Day Market. (Photo: Eco-Waza)
Via Kurushii via Joan Bailey's Popcorn Homestead, comprehensive list of farmers' markets in Tokyo this month, including Omote-sando's Gyre Market and Kichijoji's new Earth Day Market in dreamy Inokashira-koen.

More on the Kichijoji market (all organic, all fair trade) in Inokashira Koen at the latest post at Popcorn Homestead:

Many of our usual favorite vendors were there - Cocira with her most excellent bamboo charcoal cleaning product, BioFarm with the usual selection of beautiful greens and the scrumptious roasted potatoes pictured above, Kitagawen with their lovely organic teas, and Miyamotoyama with their mouth-watering homemade mochi, miso, and natto - along with a bundle of new folks selling everything from plants and seeds to jewelry, jams, an assortment of grains, vinegars, miso and shitake, along with jewelry and yarn.

Japanese Farmers: “We will continue farming on Japanese soil!”

(2011 Peace Walk from Tokyo to Hiroshima: "Every year, NOUMINREN participates in Peace Walk that starts from Tokyo to Hiroshima. This year‘s walk was very special. In the opening ceremony, Fukushima NOUMINREN member, Hiroshi Miura, spoke. He said, 'My rice fields are 11 km away from the power plants, so I won’t be able to grow rice in my fields anymore in my life. This accident proved that nuclear power plants and human beings cannot coexist. I am committed to continue life-growing farming in a new place and continue making efforts to eliminate the nuclear power plants one by one!' He joined the march and called for abolition of nuclear arsenals and the change in energy policy. Photo: NOUMINREN)

Nouminren (Japan Family Farmer Movement), represents one of thousands of NGOs in Japanese civil society committed to the visionary integration of the best of traditional and postwar Japanese values: simplicity, sustainable agriculture, preservation of local culture and communities, democratic society, constitutional (Article 9) commitment to nonviolent solutions to international conflict, gender equality, human rights, nuclear weapons and energy abolition, environmental protection, and social justice.

Under siege by the nuclear fallout of 3/11 and the threat of the possible TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership "free trade") agreement that would allow heavily subsidized, factory-farmed, genetically engineered, chemically (toxic herbicides and pesticides) treated, cheap foreign food products to flood Japanese markets, thereby threatening the position of high-quality, labor-intensive, organic, locally grown, therefore more expensive Japanese heirloom food products), Nouminren issued this statement via Via Campesina:

“We will continue farming on Japanese soil!”
Tuesday, 28 February 2012

NOUMINREN Youth held its 20th conference in Tokyo on February 11th and 12th this year. Approximately 100 people participated in the conference (the largest ever). For NOUMINREN, this conference was probably its most important in last 20 years as it was the first conference after 3.11 earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear plant accidents. All participants were eager to share and reflect on what they underwent after 3.11 and to use these understandings to overcome their concerns.

On the first day, a forum was held to discuss the issue, "Why we must continue farming on Japanese soil: Understanding how nuclear power plants and the Trans-Pacific Partnership might to destroy us."

In this forum, five panelists (three farmers, one food researcher, and one local community activist) presented their commitment to protect agriculture and food sovereignty of Japan.

The first panelist, Souhei Miura, reported that after the disaster and nuclear power plant accident, he evacuated to Chiba prefecture. However, he decided to go back to Fukushima to farm again. He said, “It is possible to produce safe food in Fukushima if we continue doing the checkups. Nuclear power plant accidents can happen anywhere in the world today, so why don’t I stay and farm in Fukushima, the prefecture I love the most.” This commitment moved many in the audience.

The second panelist, Sumito Hatta, the Director in Chief of the NOUMINREN Food Research Laboratory, discussed its role. He explained that the laboratory’s role is to use scientific methods to enhance the safety of agricultural products and to strengthen the fiduciary relation between producers and consumers. “This is how we can contribute to Japanese agriculture,” Sumito Hatta said.

He also stated that TPP is trying to deregulate the mandatory labeling rule for GM food. “We want to make a new project checking up GM food and the GM rape seeds that falls from shipping trucks. He also explained about the role of the radioactive detector purchased with donations from the people from Japan and the world. He emphasized the importance of sharing all data with everyone who needs it.

The third panelist, Noriyuki Takahashi, a young farmer from Wakayama prefecture, explained why he was such a strong supporter of making soil. He explained that because he wanted to produce delicious and safe crops, he realized the importance of making soil and bokashi (organic fermented fertilizer). He also described how he uses the dumped food from supermarkets to make fertilizer. In concluding, Noriyuki Takahashi stated that “Friendship between living things and soil is important. I am pursuing the farming technique that makes not only human, but every living thing happy.”

The fourth panelist, Ken Aizawa, a farmer from a heavy-snowy mountainous area of Niigata prefecture explained how much he enjoyed farming in such difficult conditions. He said that it takes 2 to 3 times more effort to do weeding on his farm and the results from harvesting are also low. However as Ken Aizawa also pointed out, in such mountainous areas, people are very bonded and he wants the bond to continue. He concluded that consumers buying domestic products will unite cities and rural areas.

The fifth panelist, Shinya Takeda, a staff member of international bureau of NOUMINREN and an organizer of Toke Saturday Market (street artist market) in Chiba prefecture explained why consumers should take a strong interest in agriculture He said there were three main reasons why consumers should support the farmers: (1) because food is essential for humans, (2) because local agriculture is essential for the economy of rural areas, and (3) because sustainable agriculture is essential for keeping the beauty and value of the rural landscape and stopping climate change. He concluded that farming is the most basic human activity, and therefore, “We, both producers and consumers should always respect it”.

After the presentations, the conference participants were divided into 10 groups and had 90-minute group discussion. The members of the groups were a mix of farmers, distributors, consumers, and NOUMINREN secretariats.

Each had a different story to share about the threat of TPP and radioactivity to our food safety.

One of the farmers said that since the accident, he has had a hard time to confidently tell the consumers that his crops are safe to eat, and so he has lost his motivation to grow. A shiitake mushroom farmer from Tako, Chiba prefecture, also shared that he is worried that radiation may be detected in his mushrooms that he planted after the accident. He explained that the direct sale to shops in his town dropped by one-third. A rice farmer from Ibaragi prefecture said that although he grows rice, he is hesitant to give the rice to his newborn baby. A vegetable farmer in Fukushima said that he feels relieved being outside of Fukushima because he does not have to hear all the discussions about radioactivity on the radio.

All the stories were something that would never have been expected when last year’s conference was held. All participants realized that they went through a really tough situation and are still facing it.

In the reception following the panel discussion, the participants talked about their concerns to continue farming and their future dreams. By talking to the people in the same generation, the participants’ dreams prevailed over their concerns and made the conference very happy and energetic to the end, and actually becoming stronger after the conference.

Earthquake, tsunami, typhoon, and radioactive crisis have hit us, and sooner or later a volcano will erupt as some of the scholars predict. But we, the NOUMINREN youth, will continue farming on Japanese soil.

Junko Edahiro: "Representative, Half Farmer, Half X Institute"

Junko Edahiro: "Representative, Half Farmer, Half X Institute":

I think that being a Half Farmer, Half X is doable in Tokyo, New York, or Berlin. There are some people who say that "we should limit being a Half Farmer, Half X to people living in rural areas," but this will only result in the same structure of the city versus the suburbs, by which we are so burdened.

Rather, people should do what they can, be it balcony gardening or rooftop gardening, in places they love. Setting loose rules, such as committing 30 or 40 minutes a day to handling soil and plants will enable more people to start farming more easily. I think many people feel that starting farming is too much of a challenge, so how low you can set the bar is the key. Some people will choose to go deeper, or some may choose to just spread the word. We can all play different roles.

Another Happy Ending from Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue & Support (JEARS)

(Photo by JEARS volunteers, Junko & son in Tokushima City, Tokushima)
The JEARS chickens, who now call the Hototogisu bakery their home, would like to wish all our supporters a Happy New Year! Thank you for helping us save them. ♥

Now loving cared for by Sara and her husband, Shuzo at Hototogisu Bakery & Farm in Okayama.

The JEARS chickens were found and fed by the JEARS team, led by Susan Roberts of the Japan Cat Network (JCN), for many months near the radioactive area in Fukushima. Many volunteers took turns to feed and water the chickens until JEARS volunteer Junko found their new home – an organic farm and bakery in Okayama prefecture, many 100s of kilometers from where they were found.

It was all hands on deck as the eggs were carefully tested for any signs of contamination and the whole team lept for joy when they found out that chickens and eggs were competely free of any contamination -no trace what so ever – and they could safely be transferred to their new home.

Visit Sara's blog here: Wallabi's Farm: The English Hototogisu Bakery and Farm Blog. She has a great recipe for Sataa Andagi OKINAWA donuts!


(Rice drying in the sun at beautiful Hototogisu Farm in Okayama)

STONEWALK KOREA: Apology for the Japanese Colonial Occupation of Korea & Military Sexual Slavery; Fieldwork in Jeju Island & Okinawa

A 2007 grassroots Japanese apology to Koreans and military sexual slavery survivors for the suffering caused by Japan during its military colonial occupation of Korea, the war, and aftermath...(Participants are still engaged in interfaith-based dialogue between Japan, the Korean peninsula, Jeju Island, Okinawa, and the U.S.)...

Our journey for peace begins today
and every day.
Each step is a prayer,
each step is a meditation,
each step will build a bridge.

- Maha Ghosonanda

In the spring of 2007, Japanese peace and reconciliation activists commissioned a memorial stone with the inscription "Unknown Civilians Killed in War" written in English, and, below this, "In Apology, Friendship,and Peace" written in Japanese and Korean. Joining together with Korean and American counterparts, they formed STONEWALK KOREA 2007 for a journey throughout the Korean peninsula. Pushing the one-ton stone in a cart in procession, they began in Pusan at the end of April and arrived in Panmunjeom, next to the DMZ, in June.

Their intention: to apologize to all Koreans for the Japanese occupation of Korea, with a special message for the aging survivors of Japanese imperial military sexual slavery.

Participants recorded their multilingual mission at Korean blog and a Japanese website. Others captured the walk on videos posted on YouTube: "The Start," and "Departure from Seoul."

American participant Dot Walsh noted some of the journey's stops:

• The jail where people protested the imprisonment of Lee Si-Woo who was released in January 2008. The photojournalist and peace activist was charged and detained by the South Korean government in April 2007, for disclosing include reports on anti-personnel mines clearance and landmine casualties in South Korea. Lee had examined these records for the Korean Campaign to Ban Landmines, obtaining explicit permission to do this from the government beforehand, according to Amnesty International. His photographs can be viewed online at his website, DEEP THINKING FOR PEACE.

• A makeshift peace museum in a building's basement

• The Japanese Embassy where military sexual slavery survivors have been holding demonstrations on Wednesdays since 1992.

• The House of Sharing Museum that documents "comfort station" history

•  A prison that held resisters during the Japanese occupation

•  A U.S. military air base outside of Seoul where the peace and security of residents have been violated by noise pollution from jets and the storage of depleted uranium.

•  Heyri, an eco-conscious, international residential community for artists of all genres

Japanese participant Mari Enzoe described their encounter with atomic bomb survivors in Hapcheon, known as "Korea's Hiroshima.":

The most memorable thing for me was to see and talk to Hibakusha in Hapcheon. We as Japanese didn't know what to say to them. I can't even speak Korean. If they had not been brought to Japan, they would never have become Hibakusha (survivors of the atomic bombings). But, Mr. Hirose spoke to them in Japanese and many of the Hibakusha spoke fluent Japanese and they seemed to enjoy talking to Mr. Hirose as they are from the same generation, and share the same burden that they have carried for a long time.

The Korean victims of atomic bombings have not received widespread English-language media attention, despite the fact that ten percent casualties of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were Koreans. According to Korean victim advocates quoted in Andreas Hippin's 2005 article in The Japan Times,""The end of silence: Korea's Hiroshima Korean A-bomb victims seek redress," more than seventy percent of the Korean victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki came from Hapcheon. Most were brought to Japan by its wartime military regime as forced laborers. Others were desperate, landless farmers deprived of livelihood who went to Japan in seek of employment. Around 23,000 hibakusha returned to Korea after the war, where they faced incredible hardships.

Fukuoka resident Tomoko Ueki described how a trial Stonewalk Korea began in Fukuoka prefecture at the Iizuka Cemetery memorial for unknown Koreans who died as forced laborers in coal mines during the Second World War.

American participant Andrea LeBlanc, a member of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a peace advocacy group composed of families of September 11, 2001 victims, participated in both Stonewalk Korea 2007 and the 2005 Hiroshima to Nagasaki Stonewalk. At the end of this journey commemorating civilians killed in Japan during the Second World War, some of the Japanese participants conceived the idea for Stonewalk Korea 2007.

Japanese Stonewalker Takao Ogata recounted the latest placement of the Korean memorial stone in early February, 2008:

Now it’s in Hapcheon, located in Gyeonsangnam-do, in the southeast part of the Korean Peninsula. At first, Korean Stonewalkers were thinking of putting the Stone near the DMZ. But they found it very difficult to negotiate with authorities. Hapcheon is known as “Hiroshima in Korea” because many Korean Hibakusha (A-bomb victims) live in Hapcheon. So, Korean Stonewalkers are hoping to create a peace park and museum in Hapcheon in the future and put the memorial stone in the park.

Ogata described the grieving activities that Korean and Japanese Stonewalkers in Okinawa from February 15-18, 2008, and Jeju Island, off the southern coast of South Korea from March 28 to April 3, 2008:

Each island has a similar sad history of war and today’s problem of military bases. Through the fieldwork, we’ll mourn unknown victims and step forward to peace together. Although we are not pulling a stone, we think it’s a peace pilgrimage, following the Stonewalk Korea 2007. Of course, participants from the U.S. are welcomed!

He added that details will be posted (in Korean) at the Korean Stonewalk website.

Peace Abbey a spiritual retreat in Sherborn, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston, purchased a one-ton granite memorial stone and inscribed on it the words “Unknown Civilians Killed In War" to honor all people killed in war. Mohammed Ali, a renowned war objector, unveiled the stone in 1994.

For centuries, countries have honored soldiers who have died in battle. The U.K. buried an "unknown warrior" from the First World War in 1920. Other nations followed suit, putting iconic spotlights on tombs of "unknown soldiers." However, national governments have paid little to the civilian loss of life in wars. Some experts say that in modern warfare, governments often intentionally overlook civilian deaths ("collateral damage") as not meriting close accounting.

Nine out of ten casualties of war are innocent civilians, according to the Peace Abbey leadership, which became concerned about the lack of an official place in the U.S. where citizens can mourn civilian victims of war: men, women and children. Dot Walsh, the Peace Abbey program director, explained, "The idea for Stonewalk was first suggested by a Cambodian Buddhist monk, Maha Ghosananda. He said, 'They don't have a memorial in Washington honoring civilians. Why don't you bring the one here (the Memorial Stone) at the Peace Abbey there?'"

To fill this vacumn, Peace Abbey created another memorial stone and transported it to Washington, D.C. in 1999, hoping it would be placed in Arlington Cemetery, home of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. However, the U.S. Congress refused to accept the stone. Thereafter, Peace Abbey decided to send it around the world to draw attention to civilians killed in war, and as a focal point for peace and reconciliation, supported by the interfaith peace activism of Peace Abbey. Stonewalks have taken place in Ireland in 2000 and England in 2001, and the U.S. in 2004.

One of the Korean ministers who participated in Stonewalk Korea 2007 expressed hope that Japanese, Korean, and American people will join with Vietnamese people and initiate a future Stonewalk in Vietnam.

Originally posted at the Kyoto Journal website on Feb. 23, 2008.

"Banks that broke the economy also lead on financing coal plants"

Sustainablebusiness.com via Reuters: "Banks that broke the economy also lead on financing coal plants":

The top three banks that finance coal plants and thus are major contributors to climate change [and the destruction of entire ecosystems] are:

- JP Morgan Chase: $22 billion.

- Citi: $18.27 billion

- Bank of America: $16.79 billion

They are followed by Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, and Royal Bank of Scotland

The top 20 coal financing banks are from the US, UK, Germany, France, Switzerland, China [Bank of China], Italy and Japan [Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group]. Since 2005, the 93 banks analyzed in a study have financed coal to the tune of $309 billion.

"Bankrolling Climate Change," released at the Climate Summit in Durban, South Africa, examines commercial bank lending practices in the coal industry. It was produced by several NGOs - urgewald (Germany), groundwork and Earthlife Africa Johannesburg (South Africa) and international network, BankTrack.

Read the entire report at Banktrack.org.

Not only China and India, but the United States provides examples of the devastation that coal production and burning wrought upon the natural environment. Southeastern Appalachia is reminscent of western Tohoku's breathtaking mountainous landscape and deep traditional culture. This beautiful region, similarly to Tohoku, has become a "national sacrifice zone."

To produce a tiny percentage (around 4%) of U.S. energy output, coal companies have bombed nearly 500 of the oldest mountains in North America encompassing 800,000 acres. Entire ecosystems and centuries-old small farming communities have been obliterated. As in Tohoku, war-like destructive assaults upon nature and people by dirty energy companies have been met with political, social, and media activist resistance by the people of the entire region and their worldwide supporters.

For more information, please see I Love Mountains: End Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining, United Mountain Defense, Plundering Appalachia: A National Sacrifice Zone, Appalachian Voices, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, and 40 Days of Prayer for the Mountains.

For more background on coal in Asia, see "Grassroots Asians part of interconnected worldwide coal-free movement: Coal is not the answer for post-3.11 Japan" (TTT, July 11, 2011)

Rice Field in Asuka

Rice field in Asuka, a region in the Nara Basin, that flourished as Japan's first capital at the end of the sixth century. (Photo: JD) 

Poems in the Manyoshu (Collection of Myriad Leaves)—a vast anthology of Japanese poetry compiled in the eighth century—extol Asuka's exquisite natural landscape of hills, small misty mountains, orchards, farms, and the winding Asuka River. The historical landscape is equally mesmerizing: ancient tombs, stone relics, palace (modest wooden buildings) ruins, and the oldest Buddhist temple in Japan.

The Asuka Historical Museum:

Asuka, some 1300 and more years ago, was home to Japan's ruling dynasty and was thus, for more than a century, the capital of the country. It was at this time that our country adopted much of the relatively matured culture and administrative methodology of China and the Korean peninsula, and it was here that a unified national state was for the first time established in Japan.

Occupy Movement: Americans & South Koreans protest US-South Korea FTA deal that will hurt the 99% in both countries

Via Democracy Now!:

Occupy, South Korean Activists Protest Trade Deal Occupy Wall Street protesters joined with a group of South Korean activists on Tuesday to rally against the so-called free trade deal between Seoul and the United States. The demonstrators rallied outside the South Korean mission in New York. Protest organizer Adam Weissman of Occupy Wall Street criticized the crackdown on protesters who have been rallying at the South Korean parliament.

Adam Weissman: "It’s outrageous that peaceful protesters are being subjected to a weapon that can cause permanent injury — people have been blinded for life by water cannons — and President Lee, instead of violently assaulting protesters, should respect democracy and listen to his own people who are telling him that they don’t want this FTA (Free Trade Agreement), that it’s putting its country’s laws on the chopping block and compromising their rights in service to corporate profits."

The deal with South Korea is the largest trade agreement the United States has signed since the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico in 1994. South Korean farmers and workers oppose it, saying it threatens their livelihoods. South Korean organizer and church pastor Kim Dong-Kyun said the deal would harm the 99 percent in both countries.

Kim Dong-Kyun: "The FTA is a trade agreement that benefits the one percent of Korea and the U.S., therefore it will bring pain to the 99 percent of America and the 99 percent of Korea. That is why we are doing this with the Occupy Wall Street people from both countries."

PM Noda did not enter into TPP negotiations

(A Via Campesina (family farmer cross-border network) conference convened in Chiba, Japan earlier in the fall to address the TPP threat to small farmers in Japan and other Asian countries)

Many thanks to Martin Frid at Kurushii for his nuanced and sensitive analysis of PM Noda's ambiguous ("To join or not to join") remarks re whether the Japanese government will or won't enter into Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations.

Headlines in the North American media made much ado about nothing: giving the impression that Noda had announced that Japan had formally joined the TPP talks. Martin's post quotes a variety of sources, rendering a multi-dimensional picture from Japanese (and other Asian) perspectives

Asahi Shinbun had somewhat better coverage of the TPP debacle. They quoted coalition partner Shizuka Kamei of the People's New Party, who has experience as a trade negotiator, and is against the TPP:

The TPP concept originated from trade rules established by Singapore and other small countries. The United States is seeking to use them to govern the Pacific Rim free trade zone. If Japan gets involved in TPP rulemaking, it would amount to being unfair to China, South Korea and Indonesia, which are all major trading partners for Japan and not parties to the TPP regime.

Asahi also had this analysis of how difficult it might be for Japan to get serious about negotiations, as different ministries are responsible for different sectors of talks, with opposite goals...

My conclusion is that Noda's announcement, for whatever it is worth, amounts to little of substance. This is how opponents of TPP look at it, according to Asahi's analysis:

DPJ members opposed to Japan's participation in the TPP negotiations watched Noda's televised news conference at a room in the Diet. "I was relieved," said Masahiko Yamada, former agriculture minister who is a staunch opponent of the TPP. "(Noda) did not go as far as to announce Japan's participation in the TPP talks, but stopped at entering consultations."

The archipelago's traditional culture of family farms is a starting point for Japan's transition into a sustainable future. Localized food production on small farms (the only energy-efficient method of food production) is an essential strategy to slow climate change and protect our natural environment and biodiversity.

Among food and climate change experts are calling for the localization of food production. Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, an advocate for sustainable, small-scale agriculture ("Agroecology"), explains:

International trade only concerns nine to 10 percent of the food that is produced globally, yet it has had decisive influence on the way decisions are made on the way infrastructure develops and on how farmers are being supported...

Governments have generally supported export-led agriculture, supported global supply chains, and under-invested in local and regional markets.

Instead of going backwards (shutting down family farms and increasing imports of fossil-fuel intensive, emissions-based, GMO, pesticide-laden food products—that must be transported over long distances—from state-subsidized industrial factory farms and plantations), the Japanese government would be undertaking a domestic and global public service if it would further support and share its countrypeople's ethos of simplicity, sustainability and food security with the world.

Japan's 99%: 11,668,809 (so far) Signatures Against Joining TTP "Free Trade" Agreement (a preventable "Fourth Disaster" that would destroy Japan)

Many thanks to Martin Frid at Kurushii for a sensitive compilation/analysis of the Japanese citizenry's decision on the radically neoliberal Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) "free trade" agreement:

Japanese farmers protest the TPP. (Photo: NHK World)
You may not know it, but Japanese people are very vocal and very outspoken. They protest a lot! Foreign media usually does not bother to cover activism in this part of the world. The current protests here in Japan against the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a case in point.

Over 11 million Japanese people have signed a petition against TPP. They realize that "free" trade is nothing but a massive assault that will force impossible conditions on their livelihoods. What is so "free" about that?

It could be called the fourth disaster to strike in 2011, after the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Fukushima.

Joining TPP negotiations to eliminate 90% of agricultural tariffs would make it impossible to live in rural Japan.

TPP might lead to a lowering of Japan's food self-sufficiency from around 40% to 13%.

Asking Japan to import 87% of its food? That would essentially kill one of the best reasons this country has for attracting tourists. It would kill a way of life, both for small restaurants that depend on local produce, and for fancy places that assure its customers that they provide the very best. It would make rice farming next to impossible, thus all related farm activities in areas that are known for their delicious rice to collapse. These are not empty words in a country that appreciates its farmers. Consumers here are strong supporters of the agricultural policy that has evolved in spite of external pressure.

I have no idea where all those people in rural areas would move, what they would do, how they are supposed to manage.

Farmers are the backbone of rural Japan, and they contribute to Japan's cuisine, with more Michelin Guide 3 star resturants than France, and a very high level of food safety we all can enjoy - also in the cities.

That is connected to postal services, banking and other services in rural areas. Pensions? Health insurance? Hospitals? Ambulance services?

These are other sectors that are targeted for the direct assault and deregulation by the proposed TPP rules.

But the people here clearly understand the gravity of the situation. Thus, they protest. Wouldn't you??

11,668,809 people (so far, and counting) are against the TPP.

Read the rest of this excellent post with links here.

Shisaku has more updates on TPP and lively, great analysis with an emphasis on political actors.

Uncanny Terrain: A documentary about organic farmers facing Japan's nuclear crisis

1.9 million small farms are embedded throughout Japan, forming the soul of the archipelago's traditional culture, rooted in family, community, and heritage. They produce Japan's exquisite, locally grown heirloom foods. Small farms worldwide serve the same deep cultural functions. Japanese small farmers have mutually supportive relationships with their counterparts worldwide, in Europe, the United States, Latin America, Africa, S. Korea, the Philippines and other parts of Asia. The global/local organic farming movement is growing.

The farming region of Tohoku now under seige from the Fukushima disaster is reminiscent of the mountainous region of Appalachia (also under seige by the energy industry: coal companies that blow up mountains, streams, forests using explosives producing more force than the Hiroshima bombs have destroyed numerous small communities and are polluting entire eco-systems). The people of Tohoku, like those in Appalachia, deeply rooted in place and soulful ancestral folk culture, are independent, resilient, and stubborn. They aren't giving up.

Filmmakers Junko Kajino and Ed M. Koziarski have just wrapped up filming for their documentary about Tohoku farmers. In Uncanny Terrain, they explore questions about their future. They conclude that whether the land can be returned to its natural state, “or whether the farmers must abandon their ancestral homesteads, remains to be seen.”

Uncanny Terrain—Organic farmers face Japan's nuclear crisis

The first sprouts are beginning to emerge on Colors of the Seasons Farm, 45 miles from the malfunctioning Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant and 20 miles outside the evacuation zone.

28-year-old Masanori Yoshida left his job as a cook at a French restaurant in Tokyo three years ago to work his family’s land with his wife, siblings, parents, and grandmother. They grow natural crops including "firefly rice," so named because the insects, driven near extinction by chemical pesticides and fertilizer, have proliferated as farmers return to the traditional methods practiced by their ancestors.

The Yoshidas’ farm is one of hundreds of organic farms in Tohoku, the earthquake and tsunami-ravaged region of northern Japan that supplies much of the rice and vegetables to Tokyo and across the country. Government warnings have limited the sale of food grown there since high levels of radiation were detected in some spinach, milk and fish from the region.

“We don’t know if our crops will be safe,” Masanori says. “We can’t ignore this issue. But we won’t stop cultivating our land. We farmers need to nurture the environment, nature and culture, and pass them to them to the next generation.”

Noboru Saitou’s Nihonmatsu Farm is famous for cucumbers. He also grows rice, shiitake, garlic chives, bamboo shoots, and flowers. Noboru works closely with the agricultural city of Nihonmatsu, 25 miles from the troubled nuclear reactor, just outside the evacuation zone.

“Today, the ‘problem’ spinach sprouted,” Noboru says. “We were supposed to ship this after it grew, but now we can’t. After spinach is cucumber season, then rice. When the fields are golden we will harvest the rice. That’s the best part of farming. After that we’ll plant canola. Each plant yields a lot. I hope I can continue this year. But now I see how hard it is.”

Hiromasa Kitagawa is the unofficial leader of Mattari Village, an off-the-grid community of homes made from recycled construction lumber, powered by wind, solar and water, heated by wood fire. The people of Mattari share the food they grow.

“We grow vegetables that you can even eat the skin,” Hiromasu says. “We spend our time and passion to go back to the way vegetables are supposed to be grown… We aim for 100% self-sufficiency. Soon we hope to open our community for people to experience the sustainable lifestyle. It’s cold in winter, but spring is so green, autumn’s colors are vivid, the night sky is beautiful, the water is clear.”

After the earthquake, Megumi Kondou was evacuated from her Chitata Farm. Megumi awaits government approval to return to her farm. She may not be able to grow her renowned koshihikari rice this year. Instead she’s considering growing canola, which she believes may help reduce radiation in the soil, and is a potential source of biodiesel.

Farmers and scientists search desperately for ways to continue safely using this rich land, or restore it to its natural state. Whether they can succeed, or whether the farmers must abandon their ancestral homesteads, remains to be seen.

After suffering the world’s only nuclear attacks in World War II, Japan emerged from poverty and devastation and entered into a period of unprecedented technological innovation and economic growth. Can today’s Japanese respond to this catastrophe with new forms of innovation that will allow this nuclear-dependent society to continue providing healthy food to its people, and live in better harmony with the natural world?

The Project

Filmmakers Junko Kajino and Ed M. Koziarski are embarking on the new documentary Uncanny Terrain, to follow the organic farmers of Tohoku as they contend with the threat that nuclear fallout from the Fukushima Power Plant poses to their land and their livelihood.

From spring planting season, we will document the testing of their land and crops for radiation, their efforts to adjust to the changing environment, through the harvest and beyond.

We are seeking financial support to cover our travel and living across Tohoku in the coming months, and for the purchase of highly portable, high quality video equipment to document what we find.

We will build an international online community of people interested in sustainable agriculture and energy and in the future of Japan, through regular video updates and ongoing dialogue around the issues raised in the film. In the end we will have a film intended for international broadcast and distribution, and around the film we will have generated a wealth of new friends, knowledge and media to address these questions in our own communities.

The Filmmakers

Ed and Junko wrote, produced and directed the psychological drama feature film The First Breath of Tengan Rei. Erika Oda of Kore-Eda’s After Life stars as an Okinawan woman who kidnaps the teenage son of a U.S. Marine convicted of raping her when she was a girl. An IFP Independent Film Lab selection, Rei screened theatrically, at educational venues and festivals across the U.S., Japan and in India.

They’re developing the film and graphic novel Hand Head Heart, based on Junko’s experience growing up in a traditional extended family on a cattle farm in central Japan, and learning the sword fighting martial art kendo.

Their short film Homesick Blues, starring pop singer Zoey (now Remah) as an Osaka girl running off to America to sing the blues, won the IFP/Chicago Flyover Zone Film Festival and played the Hawaii and Chicago international film festivals...

Read more about Ed and Junko's journey with the farmers and people of Tohoku and see more excerpts from Uncanny Terrain their blog:

Seven months since the beginning of the crisis, Japan stumbles toward recovery. Evacuated communities are being reopened near the nuclear plant, even as many efforts to decontaminate land are proving ineffective. With a number of notable exceptions, testing of rice and vegetables is showing much less contamination than was expected based on results in Chernobyl. Researchers investigate the reasons for these levels, considering the differing composition of Japanese soil, particularly certain minerals and bacteria that may remove radioactive cesium or prevent plants from absorbing it—bacteria that may thrive in organically cultivated land.

But the food testing regime is still sporadic, and no amount of lower test results will be sufficient to convince much of the public that Fukushima food is safe to eat. The organic farmers here toil to repair their land using natural methods (land that many of their families have tilled since before the U.S. was a country), to grow their food as free as possible of radionuclides, and to accurately communicate the condition of their produce to consumers. Constantly exposed to background radiation and inhaled particles in their fields, as well as from food and water, the farmers rank with cleanup workers in the groups at greatest risk of suffering health damage.

We will edit the film in Chicago through the fall and winter, and return to Japan next March to cover how the farmers weathered the seasons and how they fare as they prepare to plant again, a year after the disaster. In the meantime, we still need your support to cover the costs of postproduction...

Uncanny Terrain is a documentary about organic farmers facing Japan’s nuclear crisis, and an online community fostering dialogue on food safety, sustainable agriculture, alternative energy and disaster response. Please keep the conversation going by spreading the word or making a tax-deductible donation.

Traditional Americans & Japanese Against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) "Free Trade" Agreement

Poster for the 2008 Black Ship Festival at Shimoda. 

Locals did not appear enthusiastic about the commemorative event.

On both sides of the Pacific, family farmers, small and medium-size business owners, environmentalists, labor unionists, and traditionalists who want to conserve what remains of respective national sovereignty and local culture in the U.S. and Japan are voicing opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) "Free Trade" Agreement.

A recent Mainichi article about organic farmer and poet Kanji Hoshi echoes the thoughts of many traditional Americans as well as traditional Japanese people:

Hoshi is the author of an essay called "Sonno joi no shiso: han TPP no chiiki ron" ("The philosophy of revere agriculture, expel the barbarians: anti-TPP localism"), published in May 2011 in the book, Takahata-gaku (Takahataology).

In it, he writes: "I would like the philosophy of revering agriculture and expelling the barbarians to be the stronghold against the black ships of TPP," Hoshi writes. "We need to give primary importance to agriculture for its production of food for life, and to justly appreciate its function of protecting the environment. If we destroy our beautiful homeland, we will not be able to face our descendents. 'Expel the barbarians' refers to the elimination of our disposable consumer civilization. We need to possess a set of values necessary to live simply and spiritually rich in a mature society, and let us attempt self realization."

Hoshi's philosophy mirrors the "Back to the Land" movement that began in the U.S. in the 1960's and 1970's when Americans began a renewal of traditional regional rural cultures.

A parallel movement gathered steam in Japan during the 1990's, after the bursting of the economic bubble was followed by a "hollowing out" of Japan's industry and "corporate restructuring" (fueled by foreign takeovers of Japanese corporations). These neoliberal changes ended the prospect of permanent and lifetime employment for many young people in Japan who might have otherwise followed their parents' footsteps into the corporate or manufacturing worlds. Koji Nakano’s The Philosophy of Noble Poverty became a Japanese best-seller in 1992. Like their American counterparts, Japanese neo-traditionalists joined an already thriving local farming counter-movement. Many Tokyo-dwellers, disenchanted by or ejected from the neoliberal rat race, moved back to their ancestral rural hometowns.

In both the U.S. and Japan, these Back to the Land and Slow Food/Slow Life pioneers value organic and natural farming, renewable energy sources, quality of life and simplicity. Paul Gruchow's The Necessity of Empty Places elegiac exploration of American rural life before corporate agribusiness and chain stores invaded traditional landscapes epitomizes the American quest to renew local heritage.

Americans and Japanese opposing the TPP are the 99% who are actually conservatives. They want to conserve their economic and social systems as they are and renew what has been lost because of past American and Japanese unsustainable obsession with economic competition and growth—that unduly benefited the 1%. Americans and Japanese opposing the TPP want to save their jobs, their farms, their environment, their ways of life from the radical neoliberal shifts that the "free trade" agreement would bring. Because the deceptive nature about the ostensible benefits of past "free trade" deals have been revealed over time, American and Japanese people know that TPP "free trade" changes would only benefit financiers, corporate agribusiness (factory farms and plantations), some global corporations, and law firms representing these interests.

Who needs or wants cheaper (and shoddier) consumer products made by exploited workers (or quasi-slave laborers in Vietnam and Burma)? Who wants the loss of domestic jobs, delicious locally grown heirlom fruits and vegetables and authentic (from the grassroots up) culture? Who wants the loss of democratically created regulations protecting what's left of our planet, and democratically created labor standards protecting what's left of our human dignity? Who wants the continued erosion of constitutionally guaranteed rights and liberties in places where they're still extant?

Good political analysis (as always) on TPP at Shisaku and sensitive insights (as always) from a food sovereignty perspective at Kurashi. Here are some more articles from September on the American 99% view towards the TPP:

"Unions and Farmers—Plus Ben and Jerry—Unite Against Trans-Pacific Trade Deal":

...After the failure of post-NAFTA negotiations by the Clinton administration to create new trading blocs for Asia and the Pacific and for the Americas, the Bush administration attempted to expand both the geographic and policy scope of an emerging Asian-Pacific partnership. For now it includes the US, Australia, New Zealand, Peru, Chile, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore, but it could be designed to add more countries in the future, even China.

Obama, who had campaigned for a new style of trade agreement, delayed action on the Bush-proposed talks, but by late 2009 he embraced the project and the old paradigm. Although the new text is not publicly available (even though corporate trade lawyers get access), critics—who have surreptitiously seen parts of the text—say it largely follows the NAFTA, corporate-rights model.

But it seems that the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement not only is running into broad-based opposition, including from many businesses without Ben & Jerry’s high-profile social consciousness as well as unions, environmentalists and many other progressive groups. It also faces numerous internal conflicts and contradictions, argues Public Citizen Global Trade Watch director Lori Wallach...

More info and insights from Michele Chen: "Labor Day Showdown: Can Advocates Stop ‘NAFTA of the Pacific’?":

...The provisions of the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement or Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are still under wraps. But the general outline seems to mimic the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and similar pacts that have brought political and economic turmoil to rich and poor countries alike. The new negotiations are also taking place amid political friction over pending trade deals with South Korea and Colombia, which have run into opposition over concerns about labor abuses abroad and offshoring of U.S. jobs. Yet the White House continues to push free trade as a path toward the country’s economic revitalization...

Manuel Perez-Rocha, an analyst with the D.C.-based think tank Institute for Policy Studies, says that free trade deals tend to use “investment” and “growth” as a pretext for ruthless exploitation. The agreements “push wages lower and dislocate production with the ensuing loss of jobs,” says Perez-Rocha, adding that “the prospects for the TPP are very bleak and workers everywhere must resist it."

- JD