Collection: Mitsuaki Sonoda

Producer: Mitsuyoshi Sonoda
Production area: Nishi-ku, Kumamoto City, Kumamoto Prefecture Main product: Plums Use of pesticides: None Use of fertilizers: None

Mr. Sonoda from Kawachi Town, Kumamoto Prefecture

<Very precious plums that have been grown without pesticides for over 10 years.>

Mount Kinpu towers over Kumamoto City, Kumamoto Prefecture.
Sonoda Mitsuyoshi's plum garden is located near the 500 Arhats on the sacred mountain of Kumamoto, where Miyamoto Musashi opened the Book of Five Rings.

After graduating from high school, Sonoda moved to Tokyo.
I continued to study and work in the music industry, and in my mid-20s I had the opportunity to help grow mandarin oranges at a mandarin orange farm in Ehime Prefecture.
He says that at that time he simply thought, "Being a farmer would be great."
This experience made Sonoda feel more strongly that he wanted to return to Kumamoto someday and practice environmentally friendly agriculture.
I returned to Kumamoto in my early 30s after getting married and having children.

These plums are grown completely organically without any fertilizer or pesticides. They are beautiful plums.

We rented tangerine and plum orchards at the foot of Mt. Kinpu in Kumamoto City that had been abandoned for over 10 years, and started farming from scratch in 2013.

When they first rented the land, it was in a very rough state and was in no condition to cultivate plums.

The weeds and plants had grown so tall that they were outgrowing the trees themselves, so they had to be cleared by hand, and the environment was steadily improved to create an environment suitable for the plum trees to thrive.

"From the very beginning, I absolutely did not want to use any pesticides. Also, I knew about natural farming, which doesn't even use fertilizer, so I decided to try my best to grow crops without fertilizer or pesticides as much as possible."

The plum orchard, which covers an area of ​​two cho, has been cultivating its plums without pesticides or fertilizers since it first began farming.

In addition to farming, Sonoda also runs a shared house and, together with young people in their 20s to 40s who have moved here from inside and outside the prefecture, he is working on environmentally friendly agriculture, making use of abandoned farmland.

He is not just a farmer, but is also an energetic man who is involved in revitalizing the entire Kumamoto prefecture.

A beautifully maintained plum orchard. It took a lot of hard work to get to this point.