Know your food, change the world｜Hiroyuki Takahashi｜TEDxTohoku

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.
Who makes your daily food, from where, with what feelings? In this consumer society, where consumers and producers, urban and rural areas are divided, Mr. Takahashi tries to open a crack in this world, aiming to help Japan's primary industry from crisis. What is his activity, "Tohoku Taberu Magazine" all about?

This is the front page
of yesterday's morning newspaper.

According to the news,
the price of rice plunged this year

and rice farmers are facing
great difficulties.

Akita rice was sold at 8,400 yen,

2,800 yen cheaper than last year,

and rice farmers are crying out in pain.

What do you think
when you hear about this news?

You may think: "Oh, that's too bad.
It must be hard for the rice farmers."

However, once you've finished
reading this newspaper

you will probably forget about this news.

These farmers who make
our daily rice are struggling.

It can't be dismissed as irrelevant to us.

But why don't we care enough?

It's because we don't know
these farmers in person.

If you have a farmer you know in person,

this news probably wouldn't seem
as irrelevant anymore.

The relationship with others
fosters empathy.

Here in Japan, consumers and producers
are divided by a big distribution system.

The information that we consumers
can get about the food we eat are

its price, looks, taste, calories, etc.

These are all information for consumers.

Of course, these are important
in selecting food,

but something essential is missing.

It is the actual people who are working
behind the scenes of our food.

How many producers do you know in person

among the food you eat every day?

Many of you may not know a single person.

Now that we have lost empathy,

Japan's primary industry
is in a dire situation.

In 1970, just before I was born,
there were 10.25 million rice farmers.

This has sharply declined to 2.6 million,

and 75% of them are 60 years or older.

There are only 170,000 young farmers
who are 40 years or younger.

As for fishermen,
there were 570,000 in 1970.

Now there are only 170,000.
The majority are 60 years or older.

There are only 20,000
of those who are 40 years or younger.

In 10 years, in 20 years,
who will be making our food?

Now you must probably be thinking:

"We must do something
about our primary industry."

Still, right after you leave this venue,

that feeling will probably fade away.

What we crucially lack is empathy.

We need to think of this issue
as directly linked to our lives.

In order to rebuild our primary industry,

we must get to know the people
who work behind the scenes of our food,

connect with them,
and enhance our empathy.

And so I came up with this,

"Tohoku Taberu Magazine,"
a monthly magazine that comes with food.

We feature producers
in the Tohoku region every month,

and we enclose the food they produce
and send them to the readers.

Usually in food delivery service,

we receive boxes packed with vegetables,

along with just a single piece of paper
introducing the producer.

We do the opposite.

That piece of paper that shows
the life of the producer,

that is our main service.

The food is just a supplement
to the magazine.

One year has passed since we've started,
and now we have 1400 readers.

First of all, by reading the pages,
the readers get to know the producers,

and then they cook and eat the food.

That's not the end.

We connected the producers
and the readers through Facebook group.

Then, they began to actively communicate.

The readers found out for the first time
who was making the food they eat.

Many readers posted pictures with recipes

showing how they cooked the food
with their son, for example,

and conveyed their gratitude,

"Thank you." "I was impressed."
"I enjoyed it."

They thanked the producers everyday.

For the producers, until now,

their last task
was to distribute the food.

But once they saw
how happy the readers were everyday,

they became even more motivated
to make something more delicious.

Moreover,

not only do we have
online interactions over SNS,

but we are also hosting events
inviting the producers to Tokyo,

or inviting readers to visit the farms,

to experience the actual process
of delivering the food.

So we are hosting
experience-oriented events as well,

and offering these series of events
as a package every month.

With these experiences,
the readers empathized more and more.

Recently, there was a good example
where this empathy led to action.

In our issue last October,

we featured Mr. Kosei Kikuchi,
a rice farmer in Akita prefecture.

By using a unique farming method
of not plowing the rice fields,

he makes rice that is friendly
to both nature and human.

But due to the prolonged rain this year,

the rice field became muddy
in the harvesting season.

and the combine harvester
didn't work in the mud.

Even with the help of his wife
and two small children,

not even 1/10 of the usual crop
could be harvested.

He used Facebook
to post his painful situation

and sent out an SOS call
to the reader's group of Taberu Magazine.

Then, nearly 200 people,
including readers,

came all the way to Akita prefecture,

went into the rice fields by barefoot,
and harvested together by hand.

This baseball field-sized rice field
of about one hectare,

is to be reaped, all by human hand.

The readers and the producers
are becoming like a family.

By knowing who is behind
the scenes of our food,

they felt that this farmer's suffering
was connected to themselves,

and pushed themselves
ahead to visit the site.

Today, as human relationships
grow weaker and weaker,

I see future in a community that connects
those who eat and those who make.

Throughout this whole year,
we have made this community.

The fishermen and farmers are up front.

The readers are at the back.
Look at these smiles.

Not only the producers,

but the consumers are also
becoming happier and happier.

The readers that helped
the rice farmer in Akita

came back to the cities looking refreshed.

By learning about the food
that support our lives,

where the food was made,
and how the producers made them,

readers say their lives become richer.

Through my work on Taberu Magazine,
I have connected consumers and producers.

I have also realized something.

In this world, where consumers
and producers are divided,

it was not only the producers
who were lost.

Consumers were not happy,
and their lives did not feel rich.

By removing this barrier
between these two,

and by interacting with each other,

they can exchange their spirits
and their energy.

That is what I learned from them.

Now, we are living
in a fully developed consumer society.

With this single smartphone,
you can huddle in your room,

buy anything you want,
and lead your life.

However, there are no ups and downs
nor hardship of life.

The nature that grows food,

or the producers
who devote their time and effort,

they are lost out of our sight.

In this complete consumer society,

with prediction, control,
order, and justice,

we may have lost the joy of life,
or what it feels like to live,

without realizing we had lost them.

I wanted to overturn that small,
narrow-minded world.

I wanted to open a crack
in this consumer society.

I realized how to do it
by Taberu Magazine.

I'd like to share this method
with you today.

You don't have to migrate
to rural areas and become a producer.

You can still do it
while living in the city.

That is to move away from the poor,
replaceable relation

between money and food,

and return to the rich,
irreplaceable relation

between consumers and producers.

The act of eating
can be revived as a circuit,

allowing you to connect with others,

or to the vast, unknown world.

Through the circuit,
although it may be very small,

I'd like to make a creative space
in this consumer society.

From this space, we are going to regain

the power to live, the joy of life,
the feeling of life, and imagination.

We humans are now
locked inside a small world.

We must unleash our intrinsic potential
and spirit to the future.

What lies ahead of that is, I believe,

a new frontier where we feel joy of life.

In Japan, where we live now,

our lives are not feeling joy,
but feeling uncomfortable.

Why are we in this situation?

This is what I think.

It is because our mind
and body have lost balance.

We all may have become big-headed.

This consumer society
was created from our minds.

In contrast,

there is something we cannot create
no matter how hard we think.

That is nature.

We originally came from nature,

so we feel comfortable
being in touch with nature.

But the consumer society
has completely excluded nature.

In a sense, our body
is originally nature itself,

as this cannot be created by human hand.

So when we feel comfortable,
or beautiful, or impressed,

we feel those feelings
not by our mind but by our body.

At times, even this nature
of our body and feelings

are deprived of by this consumer society.

The same is true of Japan.

There must be some part
where we can balance our body and mind.

Once we lose this balance,

we feel uncomfortable.

The relation between body and mind

is similar to that of urban
and rural areas in Japan.

Things are increasingly
concentrated in Tokyo,

and rural areas are
on the verge of extinction.

After the war, the eldest son
remained in the rural areas.

The younger brothers migrated,
and made our large cities today.

The urban and the rural areas
were connected by blood.

That is why everyone returns
to their hometown on Bon holidays.

However, in 20 to 30 years,

the so-called holiday traffic congestion
is said to become vanished.

It means that a large number of people
will be born and raised in cities

and will not have a hometown.

This will decisively separate
the urban and rural areas.

A large number of people

will be confined in the consumer society,

not feeling the joy of life.

Living creatures have evolved

by adapting to the changing environment

that threatened their survival.

Japan has led the modernization
of our consumerist society,

and our lives lost joy.

We may be at the forefront
of human evolution.

This evolution means

balancing the mind and body,
urban and rural areas,

and furthermore, to balance
developed and developing countries.

This will be an extraordinary challenge.

In the 1970s, we saw
the rise of personal computers.

It was an era
when information was a luxury.

People were uplifted in those days.

You could access worldwide information
from wherever you were.

Then, someone turned that big box
into something portable and convenient.

That was Steve Jobs.

The iPhone is an extension of that.

However, we have already cultivated
this world of mind, inside this box,

and information is no longer a luxury.

Rather, in this world's most-advanced
consumer society,

the relationship with others
and feeling of life

are becoming our luxury.

This relationship and feeling of life

cannot be bought on your iPhone
while staying inside your room.

It is something you create on your own,
with the producers, out in the nature.

That is going to be the new frontier
where we feel joy of life.

This frontier can no longer
be cultivated by any genius.

It must be cultivated together
by those who eat and those who make.

I'm sure a new hometown
will be awaiting us there.

This "Apple" enriched
our mind and knowledge.

On the other hand, if we connect to this,

this apple, the real food
that supports our lives,

this can enrich our heart,
and make our lives shine again.

In order to realize that,
I'd like to wisely use this Apple as well.

It's the fusion of the mind and body,

the urban and rural.

Please remember that each one of you
have the power to change the world

from the simple action of eating.

Know your food, change the world.

Now everyone,

why don't we enjoy
the forefront of evolution

and embark on a journey
to change the world?

Thank you.

(Applause)