FOOD HUB PROJECT | Regional revitalization and local food while living in Kamiyama
A hub for food culture created by everyone.

I'm Manabe, a resident of Kamiyama Town and head of the production department. Is our work connected to society? This time, I'd like to write about the FOOD HUB PROJECT, one of Kamiyama's regional revitalization strategies.

On December 25, 2015, Kamiyama Town's regional revitalization strategy was announced.

Starting in July of last year, I, as a resident of Kamiyama, was added to the working group where each member took the initiative in creating this strategy, and we held multiple study sessions and discussions over the course of about six months. Within that strategy, I was mainly involved in the food theme in the "creation of a circulation system."

Creating a circulation system.
Money circulates in the region.

Kamiyama Town Revitalization Strategy Page 40

What does it mean to "create a circulation system"? Let's think about it in terms of the circulation of money in the local area.

The place where we live, Yorii, is known locally as the Ginza of Kamiyama lol.
There are two small supermarkets, one convenience store, and two small gas stations nearby.

Daily life in Kamiyama is very difficult without a car.

In your daily life, would you fill up with gas at a gas station in Kamiyama, or would you drive 30 minutes over the mountain pass to a town and fill up at a self-service station that is a few yen cheaper than your local one while you're out doing some shopping?

Even if you fill up your gas tank locally, if the person who gets paid to work at the gas station does not use the local supermarket, but instead shops at a supermarket in a neighboring town that has a wider selection of products, then the money will not be circulating within Kamiyama Town. (In the first place, most of the money used to purchase petroleum fuel goes overseas...)

The same can be said in cities.

The way money circulates in a local area changes depending on whether you eat at a restaurant that is part of a national chain or at a small, family-run restaurant that is rooted in the local area. In fact, I feel that people in both cities and rural areas don't live with an awareness of the circulation of money in their local area.

My family and I try to buy our daily ingredients locally as much as possible, but it's quite difficult. We often hear the phrase "local production for local consumption," but I actually feel that it's quite difficult even if you move to the countryside.

However, I think it's a good thing that you can see this circulation, which is hard to see in the city if you just pay a little attention, when you live in a small town like Kamiyama. In your daily life, when you use the power of money to obtain goods or services, you can imagine with just a little imagination who that money is going to. In other words, you can be aware of "money circulation in the community" = "it is connected to the lives of 'that person' in the community."

So how do we create a "circulatory system"?

I was part of a working group that was involved in the establishment of an "agricultural production corporation/food hub" (page 45, 5-4-5) to advance local farming and food culture as part ofthe Kamiyama Town Revitalization Strategy .

In addition to the circulation of "money" within the local community, there are various other circulations such as the circulation of "energy" and "jobs," but what we focused on was the circulation of "food."

The idea of a food hub was not on the agenda beforehand, but rather started with the question, "What kind of business would be good if we were to establish a food company called "Taberu Kosha" (Taberu Public Corporation) in Kamiyama as a way of "creating a regional circulation system."

The seven of us who volunteered to take part in this project were the Industrial Tourism and Agriculture Section of the town hall, five volunteers from various departments, a young JA employee, and myself as a resident. The following opinions were exchanged among the group:

Among them, the one that impressed me the most was

For Kamiyama, I want to connect small things, small-scale production and small-scale consumption.

This was a sentence written by "he," the agricultural clerk at the town hall.

Nomadic Kitchen , a food project centered around chefs that was started four years ago, also has "supporting small-scale producers" as one of its operating philosophies, and continues to work with farmers who grow a wide variety of vegetables in smaller quantities than on a large scale.

What I learned through my work with chefs is that under the current distribution system, which standardizes standards and produces and distributes on a large scale to increase efficiency and reduce costs, "non-standard" produce grown in small, scattered locations is difficult to transport and therefore difficult to find in "local" stores. (Direct-from-farm markets run by roadside stations and JA have a different system.)

I think this is because the distribution system that connects small things and small production and small consumption is not functioning properly. I thought the idea of a "Food Hub" could be the key to solving this problem.

The Food Hub concept was also featured in WIRED VOL. 17 NEW FOOD : What, Why, and How to Eat?, but it is originally a concept recommended by the United States Department of Agriculture .

A Regional Food Hub is a business or organisation that actively serves wholesale, retail and institutional demand by strengthening the capacity of primarily local, identifiable producers to aggregate, store, distribute and market their food products.

A regional food hub is a business or organization that actively manages the aggregation, distribution, and marketing of source-identified food products primarily from local and regional producers to strengthen their ability to satisfy wholesale, retail, and institutional demand.
( Reginal Food Hub Resouce Gude )

We discussed how the Food Hub's basic concept could be adapted to include an agricultural support system to nurture young farmers, while also creating a place where local people can gather to cook and prepare processed foods and eat them together.

The purpose and function of the Food Hub. Excerpted from the materials proposed by the working group. Our goal is not to increase the "self-sufficiency rate" but to increase the "self-sufficiency rate." That means supporting the lives of the local community with our own efforts.

Grow locally and eat locally.
Ask the world what you think is right.

Initially, the core idea behind this Food Hub was to create a kitchen in the dirt floor of my house that everyone could use, and to develop it through the gentle involvement of local people and friends who are chefs. I envisioned starting small and gradually growing it, moving to Kamiyama, and doing it with my own hands and with my family.

In fact, in the dirt floor of my house, there is a commercial gas oven and a cold table that have been sitting unused for about half a year (sweat)

However, the power of a diverse group of people who share a common social purpose, regardless of their position, like this working group, is amazing. The initial idea grew and grew through the thoughts of everyone in the working group, becoming more necessary and transforming into the vision for the future in five or ten years' time.

The momentum continues to accelerate.

"He" is an Agriculture Section member of the Tourism Industry Division of Kamiyama Town Hall, who worked with us through this working group and wrote the sentence, "For Kamiyama, I want to connect small things and small things, small-scale production and small-scale consumption." At the final results debriefing meeting, attended by the mayor and town experts, he spoke out about the "Agricultural Production Corporation/Food Hub" project, which was still in the conceptual stage, saying, "I want to run this business even if it means quitting my job at town hall."

(The townspeople seemed to be quite excited at that time.)

He is the son of a relatively large farmer in Kamiyama. He will likely take over the farm someday, but considering the current agricultural methods and the aging of the current mainstay farmers (the average age of farmers in Kamiyama is 69 years old!), he felt an absolute sense of crisis that unless they create a new type of agriculture in the mountainous region that can be passed on to the next generation in the relatively short period of time of the next five to ten years, there will be no successor.

Monosus CEO Hayashi said:

After all, business is about "asking the world what you believe to be right."
If it's accepted you'll be successful, if it's not you'll be kicked out.
In fact, the biggest risk is not the money, but "asking the world what you think is right."
That is it.

We believe that the right thing to do is to eat locally produced food. First and foremost, to grow food locally and eat it locally.

Can this be a business that can grow to a certain scale, support farmers in mountainous areas who grow a wide variety of vegetables in small quantities, support local life, support the town, and pass it on to the next generation? The Food Hub Project is an open initiative that continues to question the world and ourselves about what we believe to be right.

Starting next week, I will be heading to the Bay Area in California with other project members. This time, I hope to learn a lot from the people in the food community, centered around Chez Panisse, a representative restaurant in the area. After returning, I hope to hold a report meeting to make this project a more open activity, and to upload reports in due course.

It's not clear yet whether this project will see the light of day, but we would be grateful if you would become a supporter of the Food Hub Project.