[Japan Report] Corner Greengrocer (3) The "Kagurazaka Vegetable Project" with up to a thousand kinds of produce, small but abundant
"It was about a week before the great earthquake disaster, I happened to be starting a company, and I decided to go into agriculture." Inside the yaoya (vegetable shop) "Kagurazaka Yasai Project" in Kagurazaka, Tokyo, the owner Itoh Yusuke said with a laugh: "Back then it was really rough."
In 2011, right at the age of thirty, he, who had originally been an accountant, reached a turning point in his life. "At the time I felt that Japanese agriculture was facing a major period of transformation, with the average age of farmers passing 65, plus the TPP issue," agriculture was in peril, but crisis is also opportunity, "and on top of that I myself love to eat, and 'food' is absolutely an issue highly and closely connected to everyone."
What Itoh wanted to do was "connect producers and consumers" - things like experiential events, and also something like micro-loans, through consumers jointly pooling funds to serve as capital for producers, and so on. At first he visited farmers everywhere and tried holding experiential events, but he quickly discovered that without actual sales action, to farmers he was at best just a silly kid full of unrealistic dreams. "If you say 'I'm opening a yaoya in Tokyo,' it's easy to understand, isn't it?"
So in 2012 he opened the shop, naming it after its location, Kagurazaka. "There are many restaurants around here, the residents are very concerned about food, and I myself have lived here for seven or eight years, so I wanted to start from a place I was familiar with."
Only 34 this year, the owner Itoh Yusuke, full of ideals and passion
([Japan Correspondence]series articles are funded by a dedicated grant from the Cheng Chen Environmental Education Foundation, but it does not interfere at all with news topic selection or interview writing, ensuring news independence)