The Road to Sustainable Farming in a Not So Sustainable Village
By: Kenny Ehman
Tags: Organic Food, Organic Farming, Gardening, Okinawa, Sustainable Farming

In early 2020, we were able to increase our food production when my uncle offered me to take over his pineapple field. He, of course, like all pineapple growers in Okinawa, used a special type of chemical fertilizer suited for pineapple when he first planted, so this piece of land was not as pristine as the first. He harvested one crop and then abandoned the field, which had sat for several months before we took it over, so the field was completely overgrown with weeds. The pineapples were in their second year of fruit production. My plan was to first pull all the weeds by hand, maintain the field and continue harvesting without the use of chemicals for a few more years, and then completely clear the field to start a process of regenerating the soil. (Pineapple plants usually will produce fruit for 3–4 years before yields become smaller and less.) Basically, I wanted to take on the challenge of switching this field from chemically grown pineapple to organic. We also thought that it would be nice to offer organically grown pineapples to our guests at our bed & breakfast.

It took about two months to clear the weeds, which included huge clumps of susuki (Chinese silver grass) and also bamboo that had spread throughout one corner of the field. I soon found out, however, that maintaining the field and preventing weeds from taking over again was extremely difficult and time consuming. The weed problem became even more exasperated due to the fact that I also decided to take over another field that my uncle had stopped using a few years ago. I now had three fields that totaled close to 500 tsubo (about a little less than half an acre), which is not a lot, but it is when considering that I was doing everything by hand with a shovel and hoe. To make matters worse, the third field was like a jungle! (In the end, we were able to harvest about 100 pineapples at the end of the summer, and we “continue to learn as we go.”)

Why did I expand so quickly with just a few tools and my bare hands? COVID-19 was one reason. Along with the rest of the travel industry, COVID had shut down our bed & breakfast business completely. I needed something to do, and I thought I could use my experience at growing vegetables to make a little money by selling my produce on a commission basis at a few local stores and veggie baskets directly to customers. Surely, I thought, people would want to buy fresh natural food! The second reason was my interest in sustainable living. I simply wanted to grow more food, while creating something that could serve as a model for other local farmers to follow. I thought that instead of rows of sugar cane or a greenhouse full of mango trees supported by the constant use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, I could have an abundance of vegetables and fruits growing in a natural environment and ready to eat.

My first goal exploded in my face when I quickly became aware that selling vegetables is a lot harder than growing them. I created a Facebook page and a website, which grabbed the attention of several customers, but my inefficient system for harvesting to prepare a few baskets a day plus delivering to a few local stores was not very profitable considering the time it took. It was also disappointing to see that few locals were interested in paying just a little more for food that was organic; most of my customers were foreign residents. I also faced the huge problem of not having enough to sell. The experience, however, taught me that in order to make the jump from growing to selling, a viable plan was necessary. It also gave me a deeper understanding of the problems faced by farmers who try and earn a living from agriculture. I decided to go back to the drawing board.

My second reason for expansion, which is where I am at right now, is more of an ongoing experiment and the subject of future stories to come. After putting the selling part on hold, I knew that in order to expand, I needed more support than just me and my gardening tools. I called upon some good friends who had already been active in natural farming to work on my newly acquired fields together. After a few sunset cocktail meetings up at the third field (it has an incredible view), we came up with a permaculture-based plan to have a thriving and diverse mini-farm that will eventually and hopefully include chickens, goats, and honey bees, mixed with a small food forest.

For now, even though we have yet to figure out a way to manage all of this, we are extremely thankful for what we have. We have our original “natural” veggie garden, which has been producing food for over 12 years, the pineapple field, and now the “future” permaculture field and mini food forest, which will be a group effort. (All of this was made possible thanks to the generosity of my uncle.) I am not sure if we will ever get to the point of actually selling agricultural produce for extra income, but if we can sell enough to cover costs, and these three fields can supply us with naturally grown fruits and vegetables, along with some eggs and honey, that would make our lifestyle even more sustainable. Even better, we might even get other local farmers observing and wondering if “our way” could be an alternative to monoculture and the overuse of chemicals. This would be the ultimate success.