When I arrived in Japan in 2014, no one was talking about Regenerative Agriculture. Natural Agriculture and Permaculture were little known, but there were groups that did Permaculture in many parts of Japan. When I moved to the countryside with my family, the farmers did not know Masanobu Fukuoka's name, someone younger knew only his name, but nothing about his technique. I knew someone who did Natural Agriculture, but it was clear that they were a minority.
I started a Regenerative Agriculture project called Kuroiwa Permaculture Farm, and already being at it, I discovered that my idea was similar to a farm in Sweden called Ridgedale Farm, I was very excited and even bought his book, not without some problems, I bought two times the book, my mother got my address wrong the first time because I didn't have a credit card. The second time I was able to pay with PayPal, but the book was worth it, I liked it because it had ideas very similar to my idea of a collective farm.
Now that we have been with the Project for 4 years, we continue to have some problems, no people come. My wife had to work on another farm to help financially, and I had to apply for a grant from the Japanese government.
As if that were not enough, at the beginning of starting the Project I tried to find the translation of the word Regenerative Agriculture to Japanese, and I only found an article from Rodale Institute that translated as 再生 可能 な 農業, so we started to put that translation in the subtitles of our Youtube videos and in our articles in Japanese.
But lately the Patagonia clothing brand has become famous for supporting Regenerative Agriculture, and it has also started to advertise in Japan, I was happy myself and bought their organic cotton t-shirts. But seeing their video リ ジ ェ ネ レ イ テ ィ ブ · オ ー ガ ニ ッ ク · サ ー テ ィ フ ィ ケ ー シ ョ ン: パ タ ゴ ニ ア プ ロ ビ ジ ョ ン ズ of PatagoniaJP, I discovered that they translated Regenerative Agriculture as 環境 再生 型 農業 "Environmentally friendly agriculture". So now it will be known with that translation and not with the one we used first. Now I must add that word to all our videos and propaganda, and I don't know how this will affect us.
Luckily we have been at Regeneration International for a while marked as a Regenerative Agriculture farm on their Regenerative Agriculture Farm Map. I hope that this translation change does not affect us negatively, and that we are recognized, we have worked a lot on this project and we would like to be recognized.
What advice do you have for us and how can you help us to get people to come and collaborate in our project?
