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1. Background: the Decline of Japanese Agriculture
Before introducing the case studies of the women's initiatives in Meiho, I would like to examine two important points surrounding Japanese agricultural communities.
1) Dependence of food production from abroad
The Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries announced a shocking figure in August 2007, Japan's food self-sufficiency calculated by calorie has finally dipped below the level of 40%. Japan is now dependent for 61% of its food on imports from such countries as the U.S., Brazil, China, and Australia, among others, reflecting a trend that started with the industrialization, and economic growth of Japan in the early 1970s. The Japanese government has concentrated on developing industry at a great cost to Japan's agriculture and farming villages.
2) Decrease and aging of agricultural population
After the end of the Second World War, the Japanese government eoncouraged rice production and placed controls on the price of rice in an effort to increase food production. But by 1970, rich stocks of rice were beginnnig to overflow and the government began offering subsidies to farmers who gave up growing rice and switched to growing wheat, beans, and other vegetables. This process of reducing food production was complemented by the increasing industrialization of Japan.
In 1995, the WTO's Uruguay Round Agreement was concluded, when the Japanese government agreed to allow the Minimum@Access of rice imports. Two year after that, in 1997, with an overabundance of stored rice, the government set a new two - year target to cut back on rice production by reducing rice paddies by 963,000 hectares or 36% of Japan's total rice paddy area.
As a result, the agriculture population has declined sharply and those who are left are rapidly aging. By 2005, the agriculture population was only 4% of Japan's total working population.
Young people have hesitated to undertake agricultural activities and farming villages have lost their vitality and depend mostly on tourism to survive. More than half of Japanese food production is now shouldered by the elderly, people who are 65 or older.
3) Difficulties of farming families, local goverment initiatives, and the spread of women's agricultural business
With the drop in the price of rice, decrease in the consumption of agricultural products, and the competition of imported vegetables and fruits, the income of farming families ahs decreased significantly. The average income of farming family was 1,148 per day in 1965 when an industrial worker was earning 1,472 yen a day. This was not a very big gap. But in 1980, the income of the farmer was less than half that of a worker in the manufacturing industry. This trend became even more visible after the WTO Uruguay Round Agreement when the Japanese government agreed to allow rice imports.
The men of the farming villages lobbies and demonstrated in vigorous protest against the policies of reducing rice average, lifting the controls on rice prices, and liberalizing rice imports. The women, however, started to search for alternate sources of income to support their families.
Thus after 1997, women in agricultural villages launched new enterprises one after another. Every year more than 6,000 new enterprises were formed; some takes the form of corporation, some cooperatives or groups. The local government at the village level also supported these intiatives in the efforts to stop the further depopulation.
2. Meiho Ladies: A Community business managed exclusively by women
1) How Meiho Ladies works
Meiho Village is located in a mountainous area of Gifu Prefecture. It takes more than one hour to get there by bus from the nearest population centers of Gunjo and Takayama city. the village houses are nestled against steep slopes that rice up high above their roofs. Farmland is scarce and primarily situated on steep slopes and agriculural population is limited. As with the rest of rural Japan, the village population started to decrease in the 1960s when industrialization was picking up momentum in Japan. When the policy of reducing the amount of land devoted to rice cultivation started in the mid of 1970s, the village government made efforts to bring new life to the village and put a stop to its depopulation by building a ski slope and digging for hot springs to encourage areas, but when an expressway bypassing the village was completed, the skiers went to larger and more famous ski slopes. Now the total population of the village is only 2,200 and the largest age group is 70-79 years old.
Today in this small mountainous village, a women's business group called Meiho Ladies produces very famous tomato ketchup. Meiho Ladies is private company established in 1992 by three women's groups that had been active since the mid of 1970s. All the board members and employees are women from farming families.
The tomato ketchup produced by Meiho Ladies group does not contain any antiseptic substances or food additives, is made exclusively of locally grown tomatoes. It is sold in famous departement stores in Tokyo, and Osaka. A large consumers cooperative in Osaka is also a good customer and buys 5,000 bottles of this ketchup every mounth. Total sales for 2006 were 25,000 bottles at a price of 500 for a 300g bottle.
Meiho Ladies buys tomatoes that do not meet the strict standards of size set by the local agricultural cooperatves. The tomatoes are purchased between July and October and stored in freezers made from converted shipping containers. The ketchup is produced throughout the year.
The group produces not only ketchup but also bottles edible wild plants collected from the surrounding mountains by the elderly women of the village, pickled plums, and other such products. everything is made from locally availabe vegetables and is of high quality.
They also manage a restaurant in the village-owned hot springs facility and another at the Michi-no-eki souvenir shop managed by the local government. these restaurants serve very tasty and healthy dishes using local potatoes, vegetables, and grain and are popular with both local residents and tourists from other towns.
The group also provides box lunch to the local daycare facility for the elderly. The elderly people in the facility prefer these box lunches since they are made suing traditional cooking methods and local products. Meiho Ladies also manages a small tofu factory which uses locally produced soy beans to make tofu.
There are about 27 women working full-time and a number of part-timers as well. those who pick the edible wild plants in the mountains in early spring and who wash and selected the tomatoes during the high season of the tomato crop are elderly women who once worked in Meiho Ladies.
2) MOTOKAWA, Eiko
MOTOKAWA, Eiko, the president of Meiho Ladies, is a vigorous 65-years old who still works together with the other staff in manufacturing the tomato ketchup. the retirement age is 65, but there is no requirement that board members must retire at that age. Motokawa is thinking about retiring soon, but she says that after retirement, she hopes to open her own restaurant.
Motokawa was 20 when she married a farmer of Meiho Village in 1961. there were no recreational activities in the village and they enjoyed getting together once a month to chat. Sometimes they held workshops on making handcrafted items and understood and supported Motokawa in her activities.
Motokawa also helped at her sister's restaurant in a town an hour away from the village by car. She says she learned a alot about managing a small business from this experience and these helped her to undertake new projects later.
Around 1975, when the reduction of rice acreage was implemented in the village, men began to work at jobs outside of the village and farming was left to the women and the elderly. Most of this was undertaken for local consumption and only a small part of produce was sold in the open market in the village.
In 1977, Motokawa and her group started to cultivate tomatoes to sell in the open market. In 1983 they tried to process the unsold tomatoes into ketchup. "The process was really trial and error," she says. They gave up because the ketchup did not taste good.
In 1989, the village subsidized the construction of a small food-processing factory for the women's group. They again experimented with different products. A ham factory had already been operating in this village since 1960s under the food-livelihood improvement program and was reorganized as a company in 1988. this ham factory provided steady empolyment for the men of the village and was very popular. The ham factory cooperated with the women's group, who had decided to produce ketchup as their main commodity, and they were at last able to set up as a private company.
At the beginning, sales profit was only between 7,000 or 8,000 yen per month, but the women continued to work hard to produce quality ketchup, in the hopes of eventually securing a good income. Motokawa says, "Once, the husband of a woman working here came and shouted at me in anger, but now that we have a good income, the husbands are also cooperative."
She never allows their products to be discounted, and takes great care is selecting the bottle for the ketchup, comparing the design and price of various bottles.
3) Finanacial aspects of the Meiho Ladies
Capital
When it was first established as a company in 1992, the total amount of capital was 10,000,000 broken down as follows:
Meiho Village 30%
Meiho Masters 20%
Meiho Processing Factory 25%
Women's group 25%
The capital provided by the women's group was money accumulated from the sales of their ketchup and other commodities made before company was formed.
Profits
A total sale from the six company projects --- the tomato ketchup factory, the tofu factory, the two restaurants, and the provision of box lunch services for the daycare facility and the hot springs shop --- was 190 million yen in 2005. Out of this was paid 48 million yen for supplies which also benefited the village farming families. Personnel costs and other general and administrative expenditures, including fuel and electricity, amounted to nearly 120 million yen. The remaining profits are distributed among the employees and the board members. The company as stayed in this black since its founding.
Since the village women have only limited jop opportunities, Meiho Ladies provides an important source of work and cash income. Additionally, the women say they take pleasure in chatting with other women over a cup of tea during their breaks. They have confidence because having their own cash income makes their position stornger.
3. Observations
1) Elements contributing to Meiho Ladies success as a community
a Motokawa herself enjoys the business and the other women also enjoy the work and the getting together and chatting.
b The Meiho Ladies have a good relationship with the other small business in the area and get help from them and from the local government.
c They are very conscious of the need to maintain the good quality of their products and have expended a lot of energy into product development.
d They are aware of the importance of package design for the better sales.
e They do not attempt to compete by lowering their prices and insist on maintaing their current prices.
2) How Meiho Ladies contributes to Solidarity Economy
a Provides job opportunities for women in a farming village, and helps to prevent the outflow of population. Also notable for allowing women of various age groups to participate.
b Provides cash income for women and thus strengthens their position in the family and the community.
c Makes use of families who do not work directly in these enterprises. This has brought pleasure and pride to the elderly farming women and men of the village.
d Has made the village famous and helped to attract tourists who come to purchase their products and enjoy the local dishes in their restaurants.
e Has diffrentiated their ketchup from that manufactured by major companies by ensuring that there are no chemical additives.
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