Agriculture to be achieve

The style of Farming Budou-Senshin wants to achieve

To create Cool farming! Profitable agriculture/Horticulture!

Agriculture/horticulture has an image of being tough, dirty and uncool in Japan, but Budou-Senshin is working on re-imaging what agriculture/horticulture has.

To create “been a farmer” into a dream job

I took over m～y family business of Grape producer 30 plus years ago when I was 41 years old. I didn’t want to fit into the category of the old Japanese agriculture/horticulture way of tough, dirty and uncool, but wanted to re-create a new image of farming where people could imagine being a Farmer as a “DREAM JOB”.

Agriculture/Horticulture equals low income despite hard work

In Japan Agriculture/Horticulture is known to have the image of hard work, but a low income and I believe this image can be changed and here are the solutions I have started to undertake.

  • New Zealand is suitable for viticulture, the same area land can produce 1.2 ~ 1.3 times that of the same area of land in Japan and only with the slight workload increase.
  • Grapes grown in the Southern Hemisphere are harvested in late February ~ early April, so there are no grapes in Northern Hemisphere that are produced, so naturally, the price of the grapes produced in Southern hemisphere are high due to grapes been out of season in the Northern Hemisphere.
  • The long day light in New Zealand throughout the season has helped create a relaxed atmosphere during work unlike Japan where the season goes so fast and every day is a rush to get the job done creating anxiety and stress.
  • Securing income in the winter during the off-season is a major issue for fruit farmers in Japan, but by producing in New Zealand as well it creates income throughout the year.
  • However, these alone will not completely solve the problems Agriculture/ horticulture image has, so continuation to search for ideas and solutions to be able to achieve the new positive image of Agriculture/horticulture to be the “Dream job” is needed.

Raising next generation farmers

Grape season is only once a year, so it takes time to raise new staffs, but by incorporating the grape season in New Zealand as well, the new staffs can experience two seasons in a row in one year, which allows them to learn and improve new skills and knowledge much faster.
In fact, the staff we hired in New Zealand are able to grow grapes at top level within two years.