When there are many news articles talking about urbanization; about young people leaving their home town to work in big cities; about only elderly left in the town and lead to depopulation in rural area. However there is some news articles keep popping out saying that there is a new trend of moving back to the rural area to farm. People who move back to the rural are not just retired elderly people, but also some young people. They give up their job also the convenient life style in big cities, while we are thinking what’s wrong with those people. Have you thought about the food that you eating everyday were grown by the farmers in rural area?
The Global food shortage is catching more attention now and this encourages young people to move back to the rural area. Food is one of the most important elements for us to maintain our daily life; especially Japan is a country that most of their foods are imported. The awareness of food safety is another reason that encourages young people to farm, many young people are interested to learn how to produce organic food and there are farmers who teaching young people how to farm in an organic way.
Life in big cities is hustle and bustle. Take typical white-collar workers as example, trying to get onto a train which is full to go to work, get on the empty train to go home every day, with long working hours, included the over-time work. Work occupies most of their time, they might have good salary, but they also have to afford the high rent and high living cost. No matter where you are going it is always crowded. Would you enjoy a life style like this? Young people who tired of the big cities life style moved out and starting a brand new life in the rural area!
Back to the origin, living in somewhere that are not surrounded by convenience store, growing your own organic food; earn money by selling the food that you grew; your life not controlled by your work anymore, conversely you got the right to control your life. I believe most of the young people moving out of the city are because they found the way of living in the rural area is enriching their life and soul.
by Chi Lun CHENG
JAPANsociology 
Really interesting post that counterargue the conventional trend of movement of population. I strongly agree that people are more aware of food issue and globalization of food production has been damaging the environment and also raise the issue of food safety as well. Recently, promotion of Localism policy grabs attention. The core idea of Localism is “local production for local consumption”. As the word itself indicates, it means, by producing and consuming more local foods on regional base can contribute in reducing today’s huge shipping costs and carbon emmisions by multinational corporation. Such movement can also re-animate each nation’s traditional cuisine style, which had been changing in many parts of the world because of the globalization of food.
Reading this post made me think why I don’t work and live in rural area. It is true that Japan is relying its food to other countries and it is unstable. What will happen if the countries which Japan is relying on starts war? We should find the way to get our food from our country. In this sense young people moving out to rural area is very good. I understand that Japanese farmers are aging and they need more young workers to support and keep their work. There may be many young people who want to move in to rural area, but do not know how to start. Japanese government should consider the way to let more young people notice there is a option to start a life in rural area instead of rush-life in urban area.