To Kitakagaya from universities and other towns
In 2014, visitors on study tours came to Minna no Uen Kitakagaya one after another. In April came people from Kyoto Seika University, a group of 14, mostly graduate students and many international students, on a practical course visiting community-building sites. In June, second-year students from a Setsunan University seminar on local economies came, and in August, "Nade Lab" from Nagakute City in Aichi Prefecture, where citizens and city staff think about local issues together.
We show them the first and second fields and the base with the kitchen and salon. Everyone was surprised by a field suddenly appearing at the end of a downtown back alley.
What we wanted to convey was the "system"
What I most wanted to talk about during these visits was not how to grow vegetables but how the farm is run: how the participating members work together. That is the big difference from an ordinary community garden. The Setsunan University students were interested in exactly that point. With the people from Nagakute, we exchanged views on the shared theme of government and citizens building a town together. At lunch, we sat down to a meal made with plenty of summer vegetables and herbs from the field.
With a field, explanations become concrete. We can point at the place and say, "We pull weeds here, and we eat here." I felt that a farm's strength is that people can see for themselves the feel of a community, which is hard to convey in words alone.
Making visits a formal program
In 2017, we then put together the content and fees of the guided tour and lecture for groups wishing to visit, and set up a formal way to host them. We speak frankly about how the farm is run, our daily activities, and the challenges we face now.
We hope efforts like this spread across the country, not only in Kitakagaya. Hosting visits is one way of giving shape to that hope. A field is a place to grow and eat, and I believe it can also be a place of exchange where communities learn from one another.