Ｒｅｐｏｒｔ
FOLENS Seminar Oct 22th 2013: Visit to Seseragi Farm (Organic Farming Team Activity)
 |
 |
Mix garbage and soil. |
1 month after the garbage mixing. |
 |
 |
Putting garbage in soil. |
Kindergarteners harvesting potato. |
Date：2013.10.22（Friday）10:00-12:00
place：Seseragi（Hino city, Tokyo）
participants：4 students
Text by Saori Umezu
As an activity of FOLENS group activity, members of organic farming group visited the “Seseragi Farm”. The “Seseragi Farm” is the community garden in Hino city, Tokyo. The farm corrects garbage from 200 houses and uses them as compost to make vegetables and flowers without using pesticides or chemical fertilizers.
Ms. Sato, the representative of the farm, taught us about the activity of the farm and organic farming. In the farm, we saw how they mix garbage into soil. Garbage will be fermented gradually and disappears in a week and after a month, soil is ready to use. To activate soil bacterias, which ferment garbage, the moisture content of soil is controlled by the blue sheet cover or grass cover and soil is mixed periodically to give oxygen to bacterias. 3 years has passed since Ms. Sato started the farm activity. She said the 3 years activity made soil very soft. Though farm products are damaged by disease and harmful insects, pesticides are not used and volunteers work hard to take away worms by their hands. The farm aim to make fresh and strong vegetables that can keep away pests.
The activity of “Seseragi Farm” is started in the stock farm originally. They started to make compost from garbage in the stock farm, but after few months the stock farm closed and they get a land in this place. The farm is managed by volunteers. There are no duty or membership fees. Who wants to work in the farm comes here whenever he like. Children, families, old men and so on. Many people gather for refreshment.
Compared with a chemical using farming, an organic farming is laborious and less yielding. However, the people in the “Seseragi Farm” produce vegetables as much as they can eat and enjoying the work in the farm. The size of the farm is not so big, but they are making the ecological cycle in that local area. We thought the “Seseragi Farm” could be a good model of a continuous organic farming.