Visit to Ethie Agricultural Products

Cultivating delicious food for your dinner table!

Just like the non-standard vegetables that were the "ugly duckling," they dream of being reborn as dried vegetables, a new delicacy for the fields, and taking flight like swans away from the farmers and OYAOYA.

There are as many stories between farmers and OYAOYA as there are stories of working together to cultivate agriculture and delicious food for the dinner table! Without telling these stories, it is impossible to convey the value of OYAOYA's dried vegetables and how fascinating the world of agriculture is.

First, we introduce Etie, who we connected with through a company that helps farmers in Kyotango City develop sales channels, and who we asked to manufacture and purchase dried vegetables.

Visit to Ethie Agricultural Products

Kumihama-cho, Kyotango City, where Ethie Nosan is located, is located in the northern Kyoto area, on the border with Hyogo prefecture, and to be honest, it is a difficult location to access for me, as I often get around by train and bus.

So I came up with the idea of ​​staying there for a long time. Around the summer of 2021, I started visiting Tango, the Kyoto of the Sea, which is blessed with abundant nature, on a regular basis, as if I were moving there.

Commitment to organic materials and reduced use of pesticides

When I first visited Etie, I remember being overwhelmed by the vastness of the fields and the wide variety of vegetables, and thinking, "Agriculture is amazing." I heard that the rice fields are 23 hectares and the fields are 7 hectares, which is the equivalent of 6.5 Tokyo Domes.

The fields at the very back of the mountains are so far away that you have to travel in a light truck, and as far as the eye can see there is nothing but green rice paddies, fields and mountains, and the sky is so close that if you stretch out you can almost touch the clouds.

On this spectacular farmland, Etie grows rice and about 30 kinds of vegetables each year. What's more, he insists on using organic materials and reducing the use of pesticides, and most of the work is done by hand, which is surprising.

Organic JAS rice and a wide variety of vegetables

The current representative of Echie Nosan is Akihiro Koshie. His parents, Masao and Toshie, are both still active in the industry, and Akihiro's wife is also a certified grain master and is involved in the rice flour business as a grain specialist.

Not only the Etie family, but also the mothers of the employees and the male staff are all friendly like a real family, and they welcomed me warmly like a relative. Even after leaving Tango, I still frequently exchange messages with the male staff member who took me to my accommodation during my stay there.

Even when I didn't have any particular reason to come to Etie's place, I would drop in and help with the shipping process, and naturally fit in with the group.

Continued next time