Collection: Sayoko Toyonaga

Producer: Sayoko Toyonaga Production area: Asagiri-cho, Hitoyoshi City, Kumamoto Prefecture Main products: Rice, vegetables, grains Use of pesticides: None Use of fertilizers: None

For your delight

Driven by his desire to produce food that is truly safe to eat, Toyonaga and his son have been cultivating crops without pesticides or fertilizers for over 30 years, first using organic farming methods.
A wide range of crops are grown, including vegetables such as okra and ginger, as well as rice, peanuts, and red beans.
When I visited in the summer, I was seeing Toyonaga sorting freshly harvested okra, and I was amazed at his quality control - any okra that was even the slightest bit bent or damaged would not be shipped.
Even though the okra would normally be suitable for shipping, they are now being selected more strictly in order to ensure that customers are pleased with it.

To take time and effort

We also heard about the selection of black azuki beans in the winter.
Toyonaga's naturally grown black adzuki beans are harvested, threshed, sorted, and dried in the sun all by hand, and are shipped approximately 3 to 4 weeks after harvest.
These are the black azuki beans before sorting. They are sorted to a certain extent using tools such as a "tomi" (a water pan) and the power of water, and finally sorted by hand.
Thanks to the time and effort he puts into them, all of Toyonaga's crops are truly beautiful and, above all, delicious.

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