AGENDA SETTING, POLICY FORMULATION AND POLICY IMPLEMENTATION OF
A. D. Number of Population (People)
5.2 Policy Stream and the OVOP Policy
5.2.1 The Oyama Town Movement
The Oyama Village in Oita had 80% of area which was forest or remote area.
Previously, the central government and the Oita prefecture encouraged the villagers to grow rice under the policy of double the rice production after the end of World War II (Yamagami & Fujimoto, 2011, p. 41). Moreover, the Oyama village also faced the problem of decline in population of working adults, similar to other local area in Japan (Nobuyoshi & Lutful, 2005, p. 72), together with the problem of very low income per capita per year comparing to the national income per capita. The Oyama village’s income per capita per year was only 170,000 yen, while Japan’s national income per capita was 400,000 yen in 1961 (Yamagami & Fujimoto, 2011, p. 42). But due to the initiation by the visionary leader such as Harumi Yahata, the former mayor of Oyama town, who deemed that Oyama area was not suitable for growing rice and thus initiated the process called “New Plum and Chestnut movement” (NPC) with the slogan of “let’s plant plum and chestnut and go to Hawaii” in 1961.
At first, there was the meeting between Oyama Municipality, Oyama Agricultural Co-operative, and the people, led by Harumi Yahata, in order to seek the way to raise the level of the community’s well being. Other agricultural activities were proposed to replace growing rice, such as growing green tea, raising pig, or raising cow.
But finally the consensus was reached that they would encourage growing ume plum and chestnut in community (Yamagami & Fujimoto, 2011, p. 35), as these two activities would not required as much as labor as growing rice, that the farmers would have remaining time for other activities. Furthermore, there was another advantage of growing plum and chestnut as it would not require fertilizer or pesticide as required in growing rice (Nobuyoshi & Lutful, 2005, p. 73).
Yamagami and Fujimoto (2011, p. 42) stated that initially, Yahata visited and discussed the problems about the career of people in community and convinced them to grow plum and chestnut instead of rice. However, he faced the problem of convincing the old generation and therefore Yahata approached the new generation who were around the age of 20-30 years old. After seeing the advantage of growing plum and chestnut instead of rice, these group of people would convince their parents. And Yahata would point out the approach to ensure the village community’s well-being by increasing income and lessen the workload of people in the community. Yahata then
compared the life of farmer and salary man and insisted that being the farmer according to NPC approach would generate higher income than being a salary man.
Robert Watson, an American who used to be the foreign coordinator of Oyama town also emphasized on the role and importance of prestigious leader with intellect and ability to convince the villagers as well as the vision for community development (Yamagami & Fujimoto, 2011, p. 43).
Hisao et al. (2005) stated that the development according to NPC process involved 3 phases. The first phase (1961-1954) was the period of encouraging villagers to grow plum and chestnut instead of rice. The second phase (1965-1968) was the period of human resource development. And the third phase (1969 onwards) was the period of community development.
During the 1st phase (1961-1964), Oyama in 1965 included 85 hectares of plum and 200 hectare of chestnut. And in 1966, 500 villagers grew plum on 100-hectare land and harvested total 50 tons of plum which generated approximately 10 million yen of income. Other 465 villagers grew chestnut on the 220-hectare land and harvested total 100 tons of chestnut which generated about 15 million yen of income (Yamagami &
Fujimoto, 2011, p. 36). It could be said that during the period, changing from growing rice into growing plum and chestnut yielded a good result for the Oyama villagers.
The 2nd phase (1965-1968) was the period of human resource development. Due to the increased income of villagers, the Yahata villagers started to plan for the sustainable development by developing human resource and creating the community leader, by sending 16 villagers to participate in the field trip at Hawaii, U.S., in 1967.
And in 1969, they sent the young adults with the capacity to be the next generation community leaders to participate in the field trip at Kibbutz, Israel, in order to return and develop the agricultural industry within their community (Yamagami & Fujimoto, 2011, pp. 36, 39).
The 3rd phase (since 1969 onwards) was the period of continuous development of community, together with the adjustment of environment and construction of facilities such as cultural center, community information center, etc, as well as develop the community members’ quality of life (Harashima, 2011, p. 65). For example, in 1969, the chestnut trees withered while the plum harvest greatly decreased. And the same problem returned in 1972 and 1973, that the community leaders, villagers, and
agricultural co-operative together planted the enoki muchroom, sumomo plum, and kyoho grape in addition to ume plum and chestnut. And during the 1990s, ume plum was developed into the famous ume plum wine (Yamagami & Fujimoto, 2011, p. 36).
Furthermore, the Oyama movement also included the founding of Konohana Garten store, which also consisted of restaurant. This store was managed by the villagers, and became additional distribution channel apart from the direct sale of products and selling through the Oyama agricultural co-operative. Konohana Garten also expanded its branches to other area in Oita (Yamagami & Fujimoto, 2011, pp. 47, 49). There was also the community networking through the community radio station and cable TV and the exchange of experiences with other communities in Japan as well as the partner networks of Oyama in other countries, such as Megiddo in Israel (Naomi
& Koichi, 2008, pp. 12-15). Additionally, Oyama also prioritized the human resource development by provided training, networking, and transferring of knowledge in agriculture, administration, marketing, etc., continuously from one generation to the next (Yamagami & Fujimoto, 2011, pp. 47, 49; Schumann, 2016, p. 11).
In Adachi (2003)’s opinion, Oyama was the model of community development by the community members as well as the development of human resources for creativity, self-reliance, as well as environmental development. And due to the Oyama community development, the government allowed different policy implementation in each local area in order to suit the demand of community members who truly understand what was needed better than the outsiders.
It could be said that the Oyama movement was the result from having a visionary and skillful leader like Harumi Yahata, who brough the community towards the sustainable development and wealth, by utilizing the area’s weakness in growing rice in growing other plants which were more appropriate to the area. And the people in the area would understand their geography better than the outsiders like the government officers or regional officers. There was also the human resource development, community leader development, and continuous bonding within community as well as product processing and creating distribution channel to sell product manufactured within the community.