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Wild Nature Farm
The BANN news vol.1

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2022.11.1

Illustration:Masahiko Ban

Photo:Junichiro Morinaga

Text: Kayo Arita

"If it were said of us that we’re almost romantics, that we are incorrigible idealists, that we think the impossible: then a thousand and one times we have to answer ‘yes we are’." Che Guevara famously said.

 

'"Growing fruits and vegetables by natural farming may be like being an irredeemable idealist."

said Mr. Ban at the beginning of that day's interview.

 

Mr. Ban has been farming with natural farming methods in Fujino for about 10 years. When he first started, he wondered once or twice whether natural farming was a harvest-free farming method.


Humans are not the only inhabitants of Fujino. Deer, raccoons, and small insects whose names we do not even know. Moles, earthworms, and microorganisms live in the soil.

 

Soybeans that we have carefully nurtured have been eaten by deer in the mountain fields, watermelons by birds and raccoons, garlic by mysterious black insects, and countless others.

 

The abnormal weather often made it impossible to sow and harvest in time, and the vegetables and fruits he had grown were often ruined.

 

But he continues to grow vegetables using natural farming methods because he does not want to give up on the idea that we, as human beings living on the earth, can live without placing even the slightest burden on the earth.

 


Because we grow our produce without the use of pesticides during the period of cultivation. Fruits and vegetables naturally attract insects. If the insects eat my crops, I have to sell them. If the insects eat the crops, they cannot be sold. insects, so he hand-picks and squashes them one by one. insects one by one by hand and squash them.

 

If one person continues to do such work all the time, he or she I think that I am supposed to be doing natural agriculture for the sake of I sometimes feel that I am supposed to be doing natural agriculture for the sake of I am not a farmer who is trying to do something that has an absolute right answer," he says.

 

There may not be an absolute right answer

to this question.

 

The definition of "natural agriculture"

itself is vague, and the methods

and ways of thinking vary from person to person.

Mr. Ban says that he himself is not right,

but that he uses the natural farming methods

of Wild Farm the Ban as one interpretation.

 

The first time I ate one of Mr. Ban's tomatoes, I couldn't help but exclaim, "Wow! They were so fresh and bursting with sweetness like fruit.

 

I don't know what the right answer is, but when you eat the vegetables and processed products grown by Mr. Ban, you can feel what it is like. It may be something that each one of us can sense from them.

INFORMATION

Wild Nature Farm The ☆ BANN

In the mountainous area of Sagamihara City, Kanagawa Prefecture (formerly Fujino Town), vegetables are grown mainly using pesticide-free, fertilizer-free, and no-till farming methods.

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