On the second to last full day in Japan, our class was fortunate enough to host the guest speaker, Mr. Yoshihide Kanno. Over the course of the day, Mr. Kanno delivered his inspirational life story from his humble roots as a farmer, to a rebellious student, and finally to the innovator who forever changed the Nagai community. Filled with personal depth and philosophical life advice, Mr. Kanno’s message helped to reassure the class, especially seniors who have no idea of what is going to come next in their life (me), of our potential to inspire great change. At the core of his message was Mr. Kanno’s closing statement, where he referenced the tortoise and the hare. Although inspiring, this last bit of advice is not what interested me the most, but rather, his outlook and opposition to the existing organic farming counterculture. The remainder of the blog will dive into why a man like Mr. Kanno, who holds ideas that could be considered extremist, would choose to reject this counterculture and in turn create a new medium to spread his message.
Describing himself and other members of the organic community practically as outcasts, Mr. Kanno did not shy away from what he believed to be the core problem with organic farming. Mr. Kanno sees organic farmers as being too far strung from the general population, and the lack of understanding generated from this counter culture alienates anything useful organic farmers could bring to truly alter greater society. Rather than to live as outcasts, Mr. Kanno sees the need to connect with the larger community, with even the smallest contributions from the greater populace doing more than any small band of outcasts could accomplish by themselves. By connecting and collaborating with conservative politicians, hospitals, the business sector, women’s groups, the education sector, and the sanitation sector; Mr. Kannao did just as he recommended and set his initiative’s roots in the larger community. Mr. Kanno credits the success of his initiative, titled the Rainbow plan, on his ability to reach these wider audiences.
Expanding on Mr. Kanno’s thoughts we can look back onto Masanobu Fukuoka’s concepts present in his novel “The One Straw Revolution”, and see where he potentially could have misstepped exactly where Mr. Kanno excelled. Fukuoka’s instructions for how to properly farm were bold and put a lot of pressure on the individual farmer to change their practices, and not to say that Fukuoka’s philosophy was wrong or unimpactful, but I believe his bold unwillingness to relate with the larger community is why we do not see many farmers following in Fukuoka’s exact footsteps in modern-day rural Japan. Mr. Kanno’s persistence and ability to relate with a larger audience helped his initiative redefine the town of Nagai in a very real way, something that I believe Fukuoka did not achieve as effectively.
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