Visiting Fukushima and learning about the countless pollution cases in Japan makes it hard to understand the resilience within the communities we visited. By actually meeting with people affected by the Fukushima disaster, the devastating effects are a little more...

I have always valued community and connections among people. In fact, the main reason why I decided to attend St. Olaf was because of how close and friendly everyone was on campus. I grew up in a really close family and loved forming friendships with other people....

When I first heard about the Nasu Canal, I pictured a relatively simple structure, something that would just get water from a nearby source and distribute it to farmers nearby.  What I was not expecting was a 16 km structure zigzagging across uneven terrain and...

The saddest, and yet the most beautiful experience of this entire trip for me was visiting Nagawamachi town.  It was sad, because it was immediately evident that the town was in decline, and had certainly seen better days.  Houses and buildings stood empty, some...

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...

When we got on the bus to go to Fukushima, the atmosphere was very different than normal. There was no squabbling about leg room or people announcing loudly that they were about to sleep for the whole time, instead there were whispers and everyone seemed very...

On my first and only day working with pigs during food life, I faced my first real inclinations towards vegetarianism. Although an organic farm, I was surprised to discover that ARI’s pigs are kept in small, darkly-lit pens with no space to roam freely outside. The...