My farm only had a tiny area for rice growing, but I managed to rent bits of land through word of mouth, and I had put four hectares together when I started out. There was basically no organic farming in the area at the time, so it was pretty tough at first. But then, just as things were getting on track, the Seiyo Yaruki Farmers’ Club was formed as a group for young agriculturalists. That’s where I met the members of today’s Tariki. The striking thing was that the four of us all had completely different ideas and farming methods, but we hit it off immediately because everyone’s easygoing and naturally takes an interest in everything. These guys are natural leaders for other guys. So now we had comrades who we could talk together with about our dreams of linking our own ways of farming to the future. That’s how we started out on the project of composting the mikan orange pulp left over from the juice-making process.

Ehime is famous in Japan for its mikan oranges, and delicious varieties are grown in all parts of the prefecture. However, the pulp produced in the process of making juice ended as industrial waste. Nic was the one who addressed the problem by making full use of the rich expertise in microbes he’d built up in his previous work. The result was Mikan Bokashi fertilizer. The basic idea was that fertilizer goes into the soil, so wouldn’t it be best for fertilizer to come out of the soil as well? He is also doing research on making fertilizer from the reeds that grow abundantly by the riversides in the area, and from rice chaff also. Thanks to this progressive way of thinking, and to their cutting-edge product design, the rice grown by the four members—using Mikan Bokashi foe fertilizer—has become an instant hit, drawing widespread media attention across a range of platforms. If you disassemble the parts of the Chinese character for “man” or “male,” you find that it’s made up of the characters “rice field” and “strength”! This concept was also discovered by Nic. Tariki Hongan have won the respect and admiration of the local youth and the area as a whole. The group members feel that if they want to live up to their good reputation, they have to demonstrate a proper approach. What does this group really stand for? That’s the important thing. They believe they have to stick with what they stand for. Nic has the dream that the four of them, pooling their specialized skills, can create a future of agriculture that sustains the possibilities of the fundamental (orgaNic) nature of farming.