On Saturday, August 21, 2021, the “RESAS Education Workshop: Explore Q! RESAS Online Seminar” was held.
The RESAS Education Workshop is a workshop where participants learn from professionals in various fields by using RESAS (data from the Regional Economy and Society Analyzing System).
This six-part online seminar is aimed at high school students and school staff in Okayama Prefecture, as well as participants in the Takahashi River Shijuku, among others.
The keyword is: “The deeper your MIKATA (way of seeing) data, the more data becomes your MIKATA (ally).”
This fourth session featured talks on agriculture by three speakers.
Here is a report on the “RESAS Education Workshop.”
The information presented here was current when this article was published in October 2021. Please note that it may differ from current information.
Overview of the RESAS Education Workshop
The program for the fourth “RESAS Education Workshop” was as follows.
| Topic | Speaker |
|---|---|
| Why is Okayama Prefecture called the Fruit Kingdom? Analyzing RESAS data Examples of sixth-sector industrialization in Okayama Prefecture | Hideyuki Hirata |
| About a high school that made boutonnieres from wood shavings | Takayuki Muro |
| Agricultural experience event at a satoyama orchard | Katsusuke Kobayashi |
| About the “Tama-musubi” project | Kairi Noma |
The event was held online, with the broadcast coming from Sumiyoshicho no Ie Bunbuku.
Participants included high school students studying commerce, as well as people involved in education and agriculture.
Participants joined the seminar from their own computers.
Talk by Yoshimi Kawasaki
Before the talks began, Yoshimi Kawasaki, a teacher at Okayama Prefectural Kurashiki Commercial High School and a RESAS specialist committee member, spoke to the high school students attending the seminar about key points for viewing and thinking about things.
Some of the teaching materials used to learn about local communities are designed for elementary school students. In Kurashiki City, a textbook called “Our Town, Kurashiki” is used.
When I was in elementary school, I also studied social studies using “Our Town, Kurashiki.”
However, teaching materials for learning about local communities are not limited to supplementary materials for elementary school students; there are also materials for high school students.
Using supplementary materials from Nagano and Tokyo as examples, I learned at the workshop that high school students also study their local communities using supplementary materials.
It seems that local agriculture can also be explored through RESAS’s Industrial Structure Map and websites, in addition to supplementary materials.
“It is important to draw facts from data and then ask what you think about them,” Kawasaki said.
Talk by Hideyuki Hirata
The first guest speaker was Hideyuki Hirata, principal of the Agricultural College at the Okayama Prefectural Technology Center for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
Hirata works for the Okayama Prefectural Government and, as of 2021, is serving as principal of the Agricultural College. He has also worked on supporting new farmers and measures to encourage people to move to the area.
Using RESAS data, Hirata spoke about why Okayama Prefecture is called the Fruit Kingdom, based on its position in the national ranking for agricultural output of fruit.
In 2018, Aomori Prefecture ranked first nationwide in agricultural output of fruit, at 82.8 billion yen.
Okayama Prefecture ranked tenth, with agricultural output of fruit totaling 24.5 billion yen.
That is a difference of as much as 58.3 billion yen from Aomori Prefecture, which ranked first.
Why is Okayama Prefecture, which is associated with producing a wide variety of fruit, called the Fruit Kingdom?
Hirata described Okayama’s fruit as “works of art filled with the extraordinary efforts of growers and traditional techniques.”
Fruit growers in Okayama inherit and preserve the skills and wisdom of their predecessors, while continuing research to bring out even more of the fruit’s potential.
Okayama Prefecture enjoys such favorable weather that it is called the Land of Sunshine, and its soil is suitable for growing fruit. But that alone is not why it came to be called the Fruit Kingdom.
The brand power cultivated by previous generations, the outstanding growing techniques of farmers at its foundation, and the efforts of distributors and government to promote the produce in the marketplace came together to make Okayama Prefecture known as the Fruit Kingdom.
Hirata also spoke about businesses in Okayama Prefecture engaged in sixth-sector industrialization and their products.
These included Sato Beni Shoten, run by former Community Revitalization Cooperators, which makes the red yuzu pepper “Fukiya no Beni Daruma” in Fukiya, Takahashi City; and Red Rice Company’s “Akamai Amazake Harenohi,” made with “Akaoni Mochi,” a red rice variety developed in Okayama Prefecture and grown in Soja City.
From Schole’s efforts to obtain a trademark and sell straight grape juice under the name “Kajun,” participants learned in detail what sixth-sector industrialization involves.
After the talk, a participant asked, “I’d like to hear about recent examples in agriculture.” Facilitator Hiroshi Sakanoue said he was focusing on the Bitchu Three Products and mint.
The Bitchu Three Products are rice, salt, and cotton, which were apparently produced in particularly large quantities in Tamashima and Kasaoka.
He also introduced the Kurashiki Hakka Display Center, which is trying to revive mint in Kurashiki, once a major mint-producing area.
Director Muro’s Pick-up Corner
Takayuki Muro of the High School Education Division’s High School Revitalization Promotion Office at the Okayama Prefectural Board of Education spoke about boutonnieres made from wood shavings.
For the completion ceremony of a new high school building, boutonnieres for the guests were made from wood shavings. When the school shared this on social media, someone in Kochi Prefecture who was interested contacted them to say, “I’d like to buy some boutonnieres.”
They also received a request to use them at a national environmental conference, so they made more.
“Sharing information helped an initiative grow from a single opportunity or idea,” Muro said.
Wood shavings may bring to mind something to throw away or something useless, but they can actually be turned into products or made into something full of care and attention to detail.
Talk by Katsusuke Kobayashi
The second guest speaker was Katsusuke Kobayashi of Kobayashi Nousan.
Kobayashi looks after a satoyama orchard and holds fruit-picking events. In his talk, he shared his perspective as someone who works in agriculture.
Kobayashi wanted to make the orchard he inherited from his father “a place where people who work hard can relax and enjoy the satoyama,” so he started holding agricultural experience events.
Because he had helped his parents since he was little, he knew the steps involved in growing fruit. However, “watching and doing are different, so I’m still growing fruit through trial and error,” Kobayashi said.
His comments about grapes grown for sale and pesticides were particularly memorable.
Grapes grown for sale must meet certain size requirements. Pesticides must be applied within three days of the flowers reaching full bloom, and hormone agents must be applied within three to five days after the flowers appear on the bunch.
However, grapes grown without pesticides turned out well, and when he shared information about them on social media, people came forward wanting to buy grapes that had not been treated with pesticides.
He also spoke about agriculture and the SDGs.
Agriculture cannot be done without healthy land, and you cannot grow delicious food either.
Kobayashi’s orchard had also used pesticides in the past to kill weeds, but some plants growing in the fields have beneficial effects for people.
Since learning the names of the plants also reveals their benefits, he stopped using pesticides indiscriminately to kill weeds.
Not using pesticides not only gives consumers peace of mind, but also protects fertile farmland and the health of people working in agriculture.
At the end of his talk, Kobayashi said, “I hope people will take an interest in satoyama to help protect biodiversity, and come visit the satoyama orchard in person.”
Talk by Kairi Noma
The third guest speaker was Kairi Noma, a fourth-year student at Okayama Shoka University.
When Noma was in high school, she ran the “Tama-musubi Project,” making rice balls using ingredients produced in Tamano City.
The project grew by having students in the agriculture departments of nearby high schools teach them how to grow rice and by actively taking part in events such as markets held at Uno Port.
At “Tama-musubi de Goen Marche,” an event they planned and ran themselves, they worked with nearby high schools to make it enjoyable for visitors from overseas as well.
Noma said that they valued connections not only among event participants, but also among high school students.
Through the Tama-musubi Project, Noma learned about local specialties and the power of food and how to create local appeal, and experienced the excitement of taking on challenges, identifying issues and solving them, as well as the importance of management.
Drawing on her high school experience, Noma valued community research and field studies at university.
She also founded a travel research club and carried out activities such as investigating the appeal of local communities, focusing on the Hokubo area of Maniwa City, while traveling there herself.
Through her activities in high school and university, Noma came to feel that she wanted “a job where I can uncover and share the appeal of local communities.”
Inquiry-based activities at high schools and elsewhere help you expand your own repertoire, and it is important to take the initiative, Noma said.
Taking Part in the Workshop
I had never thought about why Okayama Prefecture is called the Fruit Kingdom.
I think it would be useful to have an indicator that makes the brand power of fruit easier to measure than it is now, since it is difficult to understand from the share of agricultural output accounted for by fruit or market prices alone.
RESAS data might be useful for this.
I had thought brand power and data were not very closely related, but considering them together with RESAS made me feel that RESAS may have more potential than I had imagined.
It was a workshop that I could enjoy and learn from, even though I don’t usually hear much about agriculture.
RESAS Education Workshop: Explore Q! RESAS Online Seminar Information
| Name | RESAS Education Workshop: Explore Q! RESAS Online Seminar |
|---|---|
| Date | August 21, 2021 (Saturday), 1:30–4:00 p.m. |
| Location | 2-13-3 Chuo, Kurashiki City |
| Admission (tax included) | Free |
| Website | RESAS Education Workshop: Explore Q! RESAS Online Seminar |
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