Rice Paddies Link Yusa Town's Circular Agriculture (1): Encountering the Japanese Consumers' Cooperative

Editor's note: This article introduces how the Yuza Town agricultural cooperative in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan, which has long cooperated with the Japanese Consumers' Cooperative Union (Seikatsu Club Consumers' Cooperative), established a cooperative relationship that has lasted 45 years, how consumer groups and production areas influence each other, and how Yuza Town has gradually developed from purely rice cultivation to circular agriculture and energy self-sufficiency, and even its own welfare and care system. This article is the first in a series.

The Japanese government's control of rice

In 1965, JapanSeikatsu Club Consumers' Cooperative (Seikatsu Club Consumers' Cooperative) started from a milk co-purchasing movement. The first milk co-purchasing group even had a name: "Setagaya Seikatsu Club." During the co-purchasing process, some incidents occurred, and the founder, Kunio Iwane, and his partners began to think seriously: "What exactly is milk?", "If it's cheap, is there no good product?", "Is processed milk really more nutritious, or is it just flashy without substance?"

Through this profound milk co-purchasing, amid constant reflection and correction of actions, they discovered that the "commodities" mass-produced and mass-manufactured by capitalist operations have many problems and contradictions. Consumers' basic "needs" and the "wants" created by capitalists must be clarified. The Seikatsu Club Consumers' Cooperative then established the tone of pursuing "use value" and abandoning "exchange value."

At the time when the Seikatsu Club was starting out, Japan was still in the era of "rationed rice." In response to wartime and postwar material controls, in 1942 the Tojo Cabinet promulgated the "Food Control Act," a key factor affecting rice production and distribution in Japan. During this period, the Japanese people relied on the "rice ration book" issued by the state, going to rice shops every month to buy their allotted rice. To meet domestic food demand, the Japanese government imported rice on the one hand, and on the other encouraged farmers to expand planting and increase output, with the state purchasing it all centrally.

But in 1960, Japan and the United States signed the Security Treaty, placing Japan under the U.S. security umbrella, and it had no choice but to accept massive U.S. agricultural exports. So the Japanese government shifted the focus of agriculture to livestock production to align with the United States' goal of exporting large amounts of grain feed and expanding international markets. Catering to the U.S. government came at the cost of sacrificing Japanese farmers. In 1969, the Japanese government proposed the "rice production reduction policy," using subsidies for farmers who abandoned cultivation as an incentive, precisely to cut back on rice planting. From encouraging increased production to rewarding abandoned cultivation, this kind of policy, tantamount to eliminating farmers, was something many farmers could not forgive.

Yamagata farmers and the Seikatsu Club's joint restrictions on rice buying and selling

Unwilling to be forced to give up, farmers rose to action. At the end of 1970, a young rice farmer named Seiichi Kunii from the Shinyuume Agricultural Cooperative in Yamagata Prefecture loaded a truck with two tons of white rice and came to Tokyo. Because it was still the era of rice controls, to avoid attracting attention, he covered the white rice with white radishes. At first, Seiichi Kunii was full of confidence, because he wanted to bring the most delicious Shonai rice from Yamagata Prefecture to Tokyo to sell directly, and urban housewives would surely buy it.

Unexpectedly, after selling for several days, the two tons of rice still had not sold out. Because he did not dare to haul the remaining rice back, he had to ask people everywhere for introductions. In the course of making rounds, he happened to meet Mr. and Mrs. Kunio Iwane. Because Mrs. Iwane was from Yamagata Prefecture, they decided to help this young man from their hometown, and the two tons of rice were quickly sold out through co-purchasing by Seikatsu Club members.

This was the starting point of the first encounter between the Seikatsu Club and rice from Yamagata Prefecture. However, later the Shinyuume Agricultural Cooperative did not quite trust the payment capacity of the just-starting Seikatsu Club, and did not continue the cooperation. But through an introduction by a friend, Mr. Iwane met the Yuza Town Agricultural Cooperative, also in Yamagata Prefecture. Yuza Town Agricultural Cooperative chairman Ikeda and Mr. Iwane shared the same philosophy, both wanting to seek a way out for Japanese rice farmers through "direct sales from the production area."

But at the time, consumer cooperatives could not directly buy rice from agricultural cooperatives. Such a "cooperative idea" was then an "illegal transaction," and if discovered, it was a violation of the law. The Seikatsu Club Consumers' Cooperative decided to challenge the unjust law, and in 1972 submitted a petition to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, hoping to lift the restrictions on consumer cooperatives applying to be rice retailers. It happened that the Japanese government also intended to relax them, and thus the rice rationing that had lasted more than twenty years came to an end. The Seikatsu Club finally obtained a rice retail license, but it took further effort to obtain rice produced in Yuza, and it also became the first example in all of Japan of the "production area designation method."

This revolutionary friendship continues to this day. Yuza rice from Yamagata Prefecture still accounts for 60% of the total rice co-purchased by the Seikatsu Club Consumers' Cooperative, and is also an important item often featured in the cooperative's publications, promotional materials and website. More importantly, Yuza Town and the Seikatsu Club have also developed closer interaction and cooperation (Note 1).

(Left) Yuza Town has been an important rice-producing area since ancient times. In the old days, the porters at the mountain storehouses were women. One bag of rice weighs 60 kg, and five bags meant carrying 300 kg. (Right) The "Yu-you rice" now produced in cooperation with the Seikatsu Club.

Support and cooperation between Yuza Town and the Seikatsu Club

The former Yuza Town Agricultural Cooperative has since been merged and is now renamed JA Shonai Midori. There are more than 1,200 farming households in the area, of which 500 are producers for the Seikatsu Club. The Seikatsu Club's total rice co-purchasing (nationwide) has grown from the initial 3,000 bales (1 bale is 60 kg) to the current 100,000 bales (6 million kg). And the agricultural products supplied to the Seikatsu Club have gradually expanded from rice to feed rice, processing rice, soybeans, rapeseed and vegetables, etc. Through pesticide-reduced cultivation, strengthening the practice of environmentally sustainable agriculture, the two ends of production and consumption join hands to comprehensively protect the food base. (Series to be continued)

Series reading:

With Rice Throughout: Yuza Town's Circular Agriculture (1) Encountering the Japanese Seikatsu Club

With Rice Throughout: Yuza Town's Circular Agriculture (3) The Progressive Granary and Agricultural Cooperative

Note 1: For the history of cooperation between the Seikatsu Club Consumers' Cooperative and the Yuza Agricultural Cooperative, see Lai Qingsong, "Seeing the World from the Kitchen," P234~241