Upstream - Half Farmer, Half X with Mika Furugori and Naoki Shiomi

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

Imagine this week you spent half your time growing, harvesting, preserving, and cooking food for yourself, your family, and perhaps your community — and the other half your time doing something else that you love, something that brings you joy — perhaps writing, podcasting, coaching, caring for others, or anything else. How would you feel? What would change about your relationship to food, to place, to work, and to the seasons? This is the lifestyle model championed by farmer and writer Naoki Shiomi.   Since the 1990s, the idea of "Half Farmer, Half X" — combining sustainable farming with an income-generating “X” variable that represents one’s calling, has inspired people across Japan and other parts of Asia to abandon corporate-capitalist modes of mass production, mass consumption, overwork, and long commutes — and to instead realign their priorities and make dramatic life changes to empower food sovereignty, community sufficiency, and meaningful livelihoods.   In the first half of this conversation, we’ll speak with Mika Furugori, a practitioner of Half Farmer Half X who quit her corporate job to move to the Japanese countryside to grow and cook food. And then, in the second half of the show, we’ll speak with Naoki Shiomi, the originator of the Half Farmer Half X concept — his words will be translated by Mika. Together we explore why people are turning to this model, how it connects with larger movements for systemic change, and how we can start embracing Half Farmer Half X no matter our living situation.   Thank you to Yujiro Kudo for the intermission music and to Carolyn Raider for the cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode was brought to you by The Decolonizing Economics Summit: The 4th Annual Post-Capitalism Conference from Thursday, April 20th – Saturday, April 22nd. The conference will be virtual, with an in-person Earth Day celebration on April 22nd in McKinleyville, CA. We invite you to join us at this radically new look at how to transform our economy, from a decolonizing and solidarity economy perspective.   Also, we're excited to share about a new, free course from our friends at ECONOMICS FOR EMANCIPATION — it’s a collaboration over decades between grassroots social justice and union organizers  — and heterodox economists out of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. E4E is a seven-module introductory course that covers economics, politics, and the history of movements for economic justice in the US. It creates spaces for learning about alternatives to capitalism and applying the lessons to craft organizing strategies and community projects. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

This episode of Upstream is brought to you by the Decolonizing Economics Summit, the fourth annual post-capitalism conference from Thursday, April 20th through Saturday, April 22nd. The conference will be virtual with an in-person Earth Day celebration on April 22nd in McKinleyville, California. We invite you to join us at this radically new look at how to transform our economy from a decolonizing and solidarity economy perspective. Learn more at decolonizingeconomicsummit.org. The half-farmer, half-ex lifestyle provides the three F's for life, food, fulfillment, and flexibility. The farming provides us with food.

A true vocation provides fulfilment. And most importantly, this lifestyle gives flexibility to life. It has often confirmed to me that flexibility played a significant role in human well-being because life is not rigid. It is always dynamically changing. You are listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream.

A podcast of documentaries and conversations that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics. I'm Robert Raymond. And I'm Della Duncan. Imagine that this week you spent half your time growing, harvesting, preserving, and cooking food for yourself, your family, and perhaps even your community. And the other half of your time doing something else that you love, something that brings you joy. Perhaps writing, or podcasting,

or coaching, or caring for others, or anything else. How would you feel? What would change about your relationship to food, place, work, and to the seasons? This is the lifestyle model championed by farmer and writer Naoki Shion. Since the 1990s, the idea of half farmer half X combining sustainable farming with an income generating X variable that represents one's calling, has inspired people across Japan and other parts of Asia to abandon corporate capitalist modes of mass production, mass consumption, overwork, and long commutes, and to instead realign their priorities and make dramatic life changes to empower food sovereignty,

community sufficiency, and meaningful livelihoods. In the first half of this conversation, we'll speak with Mika Furugori, a practitioner of Half Farmer Half Ex who quit her corporate job to move to the Japanese countryside to grow and cook food. And then, in the second half of the show, we'll speak with Naoki Shiyomi, the originator of the half-farmer, half-ex concept. His words will be translated by Mika. Together we explore why people are turning to this model, how it connects with larger movements for systemic change, and how we can start embracing half-farmer, half-ex, no matter our living situation.

And now, here's Della, in conversation with Mika Furugori. So let's start with an introduction. How might you introduce yourself for our listeners? My name is Mika Frigori. I am Japanese. I currently work as a chef at the Holistic Retreat Center in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. It's a very beautiful place surrounded by rich nature, river and forest and mountains. I cook food with vegetables harvested in our garden and serves to guests who visit us. About 30 of us live and work together. It's like a small community there. I used to work for a pharmaceutical company for 15 years and lived in the big cities like Osaka and Tokyo. So I made a big change in my life about

five years ago when I quit my job and went to Shumaka College in England. And as you know, the Shumaka College was a life-changing experience. So then at Shumaka College, I wrote a dissertation about half-arma, half-ex concept, which was developed in Japan in 90s. So that's why I'm here with you today. Yes, and I'm happy to have you. So Mika, how would you describe the half-farmer, half-ex movement in your own words? Half-farmer, half-ex is the concept coined by Naoki Shiyomi, who is going to be here with us today anyway. And I call him Shiyomi-san. The idea promotes a lifestyle where people practice small-scale subsistence farming to grow their own food while doing eggs, which is a mission in life. I think half farmer, half X is a simple guidance

for people who are seeking for different ways of living. In our society, everything is so industrialized, globalized, and standardized, so mechanical and digital. Also we are challenged by climate change, COVID-19 and price increase and commodities. So people are looking for something else, something more sustainable, local, diverse and natural. So the concept appeals to those people who are looking for spiritual and psychological fulfillment. There is some kind of solution to the problems that we are facing in our personal and social life. In Japan, especially the Great Earthquake in March 2011 woke our consciousness up.

We literally experienced that commodities were gone from the supermarket overnight. So it confirmed us that our system is not resilient. It's very fragile. So the numbers of people started thinking of moving out of the big cities. The idea has become popular among those people too. It's been 30 years since Jiyomi-san first coined the term, and the idea has been spreading across the country slowly and suddenly. It's amazing that he's living with this concept for the last 30 years, and it's growing, growing.

And also, when I talked about this idea to friends from the West, they received it well. They understand what he's trying to say. So I think the idea is very universal too. And what is good about this idea is that the people can just start with what is possible right now. There's no formula that we must be followed regarding half-pharma, half-X. We can just start small and some change may occur. That's how I describe half-pharma, half-X. Thank you for your description. I'm wondering, can you share your own connection? You said that you were in pharmaceuticals, you then went to Schumacher College, and then you did this dissertation on the subject of half-pharma, half-X, which included an embodiment of the concept. So tell us about your own experience and connection with half-pharma, half-X. How did

it transform you? What did you find? What did you realize? So as you just said, I wrote a dissertation about it, and I quit my job in 2017. I didn't know what to do with my life back then. I just only knew that I wanted to go to Shumaka College. And at the college, I didn't know what I'd do after I graduated. But I knew that I didn't want to go back to the same job that I did in Tokyo. Because, as you said it's very busy and you know you don't feel like you're alive there so I was looking for something

else then I just encountered this idea of half I'm a half ex it was actually Julie Richardson who told me about it it was the concept developed in, but I didn't know much about it. So I decided to make a research on it. So I went to Ayabe city in Kyoto, where Shio Misan used to live. And I interviewed 11 practitioners of half-arma, half-ex lifestyle. And in every interview, I sensed that the interviewees in Ayabe were highly satisfied with this way of living. So I was very inspired by those people. And when I came back to Japan, I was like, what am I going to do? Then, you know, I just wanted to be close to nature. Then I decided to go to Nagano Prefecture, where it's very different from Tokyo or Osaka. It's just green and mountainous and beautiful rivers. And that's how, you know, this concept itself inspired me to live different way.

Thank you. So now, would you say that you live a half farmer, half ex life? And if so, what does that look like? And what is your half ex? You know, probably Shiyomi-san is going to talk to you but this phrase express you know half but it doesn't have to be 50 that's what he says it can be 20 of farming or 20 that you do whatever you like to do so i do multiple things now i do some translation work i do like i seriously meditate and i do some teaching but mainly i do i cook food i'm a chef now and uh i have a small allotment to grow some food so i feel like i'm

doing a lot now and in japan we we used to call farmers as hyakusho, which means 100 last names. So when you are peasant, when you work on the land, you have to do many things with your hand, with your land. So you have 100 last names. I feel like, you know, I do a lot of things, just not only one, but multiple things at the same time. When I work in like Tokyo, you are just only office worker. You do one thing all the time, like eight hours, nine hours a day, five days a week. It's very different that way I live now. And how much of your food do you meet with farming?

How much of your own what you eat or what you cook is met through farming? I'll say 50%. We buy rice, but we grow most of the vegetables that we cook is from our garden, especially during summer. Wonderful. What have you learned about livelihood and work in your lived experience of being half farmer, half ex, or living that concept? You know, life is very busy in Japan. Life can be very busy and hectic in Japan. So by embodying this lifestyle, by doing this lifestyle,

I kind of learned how to wait, like how to get rest, how to be more relaxed. I was just kept going going going forward and I was filling my time with by doing something all the time before but now I learned how to live with the rhythm of nature so I learned how to wait how to observe things like now I wake up very early in the morning to go to the garden and I go to bed very early at night too so I rest a lot and during the winter our center is closed for heavy snow so I have like four months off from work during the winter it's crazy I never thought I would ever you know I would ever do it but it's possible to live like this and you know financial issue is not as dominant as I thought it would be that's probably because I value more on the you know spiritual fulfillment than the material satisfaction so I make a lot less money compared to what I used to make, but I spend a lot less too.

So it really doesn't bother me that much. And I was very afraid of not finding anything and end up on the street one day, but it didn't happen. Once you really change something, you know, the life just unfolds in front of you and it's important you you know just take a first step and things happen that's what I learned and also last years I learned how to make things now I make a lot of things I make my clothes, the clothes that I'm wearing today, I made it. And I make aprons, food, like bags, sweets, bread, shelves with my hand. I never knew that I could do it. But you know, if I do it, I can just do it. I was just spending money on buying before. I was just a consumer. But now I would rather make things than buying and by act of making I feel so much joy

and I can cultivate the sense of self-confidence too so you know this way of living just taught me how to live differently yeah I'm reminded by a quote from a mentor, Dr. Hovind Toh from the Gross National Happiness Center in Bhutan. He says, we are attentive to what we measure. We are attentive to what we measure. So I hear in your story that you had measurements of success and that they changed. And so you may not be as abundant, let's say, in financial income, but you're abundant in joy and in spirituality and a sense of creativity, you know, and living a handmade life. That's beautiful. I can imagine there may be folks listening who think, listening who think, great for Mika, but could everyone live like this? Is it not a privilege or even a way to take oneself out of the current economic system and live in an island? So how

might you respond to that? Folks who might wonder if there's barriers for more folks being able to live like this, if it may be a privilege and also if it's a way of kind of escaping our current economic system. What might you say to that? In a way, I feel like it's my privilege too. Because I worked for 15 years, so financially, still like, you know, the money that I made back then,

it's supporting myself too. still like you know the money that I made back then it's supporting myself too but unless otherwise you do not start something and you are feeling something different something is wrong with the way you live right now nothing will happen it's just important to make a small step and what half farmer half x is suggesting you don't have to quit your job you don't have to move out the town you just can start something small you can just start making tomatoes on your balcony that's already half from a half x that's what shimison says it's just you know this concept encourages you to start something we don't have to change everything overnight but accumulating the small changes one day you are going to be at the different place so it took me for 15 years to make a decision so I understand how what something inside of you

is blocking yourself to break you know to open up yourself but I think that one day it happens because if you are really looking for something strongly, like inside of you, it's just, you know, crying out for something else, then it will happen one day. So it doesn't matter if you take time. In your 60s, in your 70s, it doesn't matter.

There is going to be time. When time comes, it comes. That's what I can say. Thank you. What are the questions that are most alive for you right now on your livelihood path? Since you asked me to talk about half-harm half-ex I have been thinking how to tell the story to other people and how to be a good catalyst to deliver a message so that the good ideas can get penetrated to society and people and uh you know as you said it might be my privilege but i somehow feel responsible to share my experience and story to others because you know they are not my property i feel like i have a role to disseminate the idea to people who want to hear about it. So I'm asking the question of how recently to myself how I do it how to be rather than what I do or why I do

and you know one of my colleagues from my work she's a cook too. One day she said to me that she cooks food as if she writes a letter to people who eat our food because our food contains messages from the sun and earth and water, river and ourselves. So if I cook food well and appropriately, people can read the message within. I thought it's such a beautiful way to communicate with others and how to express yourself, how you are, how to be. You are already delivering the message to people. I'm just questioning myself how I want to be recently. Yeah, I hear that, how you want to share your story and the message and cooking as a way of sharing that message, but also how do you invite others into the benefits of the half-farmer, half-ex lifestyle? Beautiful. So I would like to ask about this thing that I've heard about work in Japan, which is the idea of, I believe it's karoshi, which is death by overwork or a kind of like a suicide in work phenomenon.

And particularly because I wonder if the half farmer, half ex lifestyle had come out of that or is in response to that. But also, where is that coming from when you go upstream to the root causes of that? So I don't know if you can speak about that word and what it means, its significance, its popularity, and its relation to the half farmer, half X movement? One aspect is that the nature of Japanese culture, you know, we are coming from the samurai culture. It's like you take responsible for what you do. That's why if the things don't go well, people feel like that's my responsibility, that I did something wrong with it that's why that really pushes people even to the death that's one side and that's also causing us to work so hard from really early in the morning to you know really dark like night, 10, 11 p.m.

Because the nature of Japanese, we want to be perfect on everything. We want to be very punctured on time, perfect, beautiful. People can just feel so much pressure from it because we only have 24 hours a day you know the amount of work we can do during the day is limited but because our society is pushing us to going forward and may be productive and you know to expand our business then it's just going beyond of human scale. Everything is going beyond of human scale.

That's one of the cause that's pushing some people to the death. I don't see too much relationship with this Kairoshi and Half--arm half-ex movement. Half-arm half-ex, the idea itself came from the... Shiyomi-san was really concerned about the environmental issues and human well-being. Maybe the well-being part is related to the karoshi but it's really related to environmental problems so as i said it's more related to this uh earthquake that we experienced it proved that money is just a paper back then it's just everything just, you know, was gone after earthquake. If you have money, it really didn't help. You just needed the connection with other people, with yourself, with the nature. That's really supported the idea in a way.

How would you describe the popularity now, today, of the half-farmer, half-ex movement? You mentioned that while you were at Schumacher, you hadn't heard of it before. So what about it now? I know that there's the book and there's the website, but how would you describe the movement's popularity today? I think the COVID-19 let us stay home for the last two years. and some people started gardening, farming close to your house even they live in the big cities so I think the name of the half farmer half X is more spreaded to more acknowledged by the society But I can't tell the percentage, but people are more conscious about how we live.

And, you know, the word well-being is even getting popular in Japan. It's in English, but people say well-being, well-being everywhere now. I asked, actually, I asked Shiumi-san what percentage of the people that is acknowledging recognizing this word but he was not sure either but he he just recently published two other books too so he published about five or six books already. And it's been translated to Taiwanese, Chinese, Vietnamese too. So it's gaining some popularity in Asia. So one last question. What insights or lessons did you learn from your interviews

with people who practice half-farmer, half-ex? Let me share the conclusion of my dissertation with you. In conclusion, I said that the half farmer half x lifestyle provides the three f's for life, food, fulfillment, and flexibility. Farming provides us with food. A true vocation provides fulfillment. And most importantly, this lifestyle gives flexibility to life. Throughout this research, it has often confirmed to me that flexibility played a significant role in human well-being because life is not rigid.

It is always dynamically changing. That's how I concluded my dissertation. That's beautiful. Did you have any insights from the interviews with the 11 people? They all are very positive, very, very inspiring and creative. And they are very active to change something, not only in their life, but in

social environment surrounding. It was very inspiring. That was such a treat. That was a gift for me to meet those people too. You're listening to an Upstream Conversation with Mika Furgori and Naoki Shomi.

We'll be right back.何でもない一日の始まりに歯を磨く 朝焼けつま先鳴らして靴を履く 午後魚釣り ごきげんよう山よ人よ街よ 湖面にはじかれた光よ コーヒーを入れてくれ 熱くて目が覚めるやつを 友達もみんな早起きしたみたい

おむすびがよく似合う チャンボーイ 野鳥の貝の長靴を履いてきたやつもいる 雲が流れる 草木は揺れ楽しそうに 魚も跳ねているよ のんびりやろか 鼻歌ちずさみながら 300日の悲しみ忘れずに 糸たらす恐竜の時代から

この世で一番大切なものは魚釣り 入道雲と空の両線 無口な日差しと山場との声 午後魚釣り トタラス恐竜の時代から この世で一番大切なものは魚釣り 当てどもないけどつくつく方式 まぐれな通り雨を見送ったら ゴーゴー魚釣り大漁を願って

ゴーゴー魚釣り大漁を願って That was Gogo Saka Natsui by Yujiro Kudo. Now, back to our conversation with Mika Furugori and Naoki Shiyomi. Welcome, Shiyomi-san. Let's start with you introducing yourself for our listeners. Hello, everyone. My name is Naoki Shiyomi. I'm from Kyoto.リスナーの皆さんこんにちはこんにちは 私は直樹しおみです 私は京都の農村部です 私は京都の市中心ではありません 私は京都の農村部の地域の中心です

私は30年前から反農反xと I advocate the concept of half farmer half x since 30 years ago So when I started I was in my 20th now I'm in my 50th It's my pleasure to be here with you today 皆さんよろしくお願いします Thank you my pleasure as well and so how would you describe the half farmer half x皆さんよろしくお願いします。どうぞ。 ハナエックスの動きをどうご紹介しますか? ハナエックスは… 農業のサイズは大変です。

小さなサービスを提供することは、大きな農業を作ることもできます。 I just recommend a small-scale subsistence farming, but you can do a big farm as well. So the idea is to have a diversity in farming too. So expert can be anything too. You can do the volunteer. You can call your ex's volunteering work or in a startup venture or public servant. Or child caring could be your ex too. I believe that everyone has their own ex.スタートアップベンチャー、公共財産者、子どもの保育士もお役に立てるかもしれません。 私は、彼らは自分の役を持っていると信じています。 私たちは、半農家半役の生活につながるために何をするべきかと考えています。もうやっぱり人間行、その順番に向かってきたことを、私が言ったように、

ファミリーをするのは良いことだと、私は思います。 私は、米国からのレイチェル・カーソンの本を好きで、 その言葉の、感想の驚きが私にとってとても気に入っています。 そして、小さなファミリーは、自然に戻りたいと、 me so and the small scale farming reminds you to how to come back to nature beautiful thank you and i know that you were drawn to this work because of an interest in sustainability and the earth's challenges so why why is the half farmer, half X more sustainable? Or how is it better for the planet? When I say farming, I mean that the farming,

which is less dependent on the fossil fuel, very small scale farming. That's what I mean when i say farm you know you respect your land you respect the insects that you meet on the garden in the garden and you know by growing food which are grown organically then it's just sustainable to your body too. It sustains your body too. So I love insects. That's why I do not use any pesticides when I'm on the garden or farm. I don't use pesticides. I love insects.

What is the connection between the half-farmer, half-ex lifestyle and income and financial needs? Because I imagine one might be listening and one might think, well, I wouldn't be able to be working enough to meet my financial needs. So what's the connection there? That's an important point. So ex differs from people to people. So the amount of money that you make is different.

Depends on what you do as your X. So what I value in halfama half X is to make something appropriate to your life. It's to do it within human scale. So it doesn't say that you cannot人間のスケールでそれを行うことです。 100億円は、ハーフアワー・ハーフエックスを行うことではありません。 あなたが欲しいほどの稼働をすることができます。 しかし、それを正確なサイドに保つことは重要です。 in the appropriate side. So I heard the book called Slash Career. It was published in the United States. It has not been translated into Japanese, but I heard in that book,

it was suggested to have multiple tasks in life. Like you can be designer slash child caring私たちは、多くの仕事をしていることを考えています。私たちは、デザイナー、子どもの保育士、教師などであることを考えています。 私たちの未来は、多くの仕事をしていることを考えています。 私たちは、多くの仕事をしていることを考えています。 私たちは、多くの仕事をしていることを考えています。 in your life, that's something might happen in the future. Yes, I've developed a way of thinking of right livelihood that is using a right livelihood garden metaphor, that we each have different plants in our garden, that some may be financial plants, meaning they bear fruit that is money, and others might be volunteering plants or caretaking plants.

And so we each have a garden, a Right Livelihood garden with many plants in our gardens. A similar idea. So, you know, when people hear half farmer, half eggs, it sounds like you have to do 50% farming, 50% something else. It gives this kind of impression. But what I actually is trying to say is I don't recommend people to do 0% of farming, at least 1%. But farming doesn't have to be 100% either. So in the range from 1% to 90%, you can choose how much that you want to do farming.

That's my idea. Half and half. And in addition, to describe half farmer, half eggs, the idea is, you know, the farming part is the base of your life. It's considered as the denominator. And on the top of it, you have X as a numerator. So it's not left side symmetry, bilateral relationship.

It's more like on the bottom, you have the farming and on the top, you have something X to open up your possibilities.の関係は、底にファミリーがあるのと、上にエッグがあるのと、そのような可能性を開き上げることができるのです。 これがハーフアーム・ハーフエッグのアイデアです。 ハーフアーム・ハーフエッグの本は、まだ英語に翻訳されていません。 the half farmer half eggs has not been translated the books have not been translated into english yet so i'm a little bit suspicious that this expression is misleading misguiding so if you come up with some good idea there let me know another translation of half farmer half eggs日本語では反応反xと呼んでいます。古い日本では、半ファーマー半フィッシャーという言葉は100年前に存在していました。 そのため、私はその言葉を半ファーマー半フィッシャーとして、 半ファーマー半xとして、現代社会に合わせて使用しています。 to fit it to the modern society. Yeah, that's very helpful to know.

And I guess one point of clarification, is the farming for one's own food needs or is it farming to produce food for others for sale or for consumption for other people? I think that's important too. Which type of farming is it referring to? So there's actually not really fixed formula. I mean, I did it for myself, just for my family. But if you like to cook and open up the restaurant you can just you know do a little bit bigger farm and you know use the vegetables harvested for your restaurant

too and some people you know good with the machines you can do a you know bigger farm too and if you are just you know living with your family and busy with child caring, you can just start with very small too. It really depends. So I know that one of your passions is to help people find out what their ex is. So if somebody僕もXがあったわけではないんですけどもいいだろ バーアイワンズはキーとカモンを追ってでアイデアの葉っぱもハーフ x ソーディスミレイディングディスアイディア ハスピカム前へ自分の x がわからない場合とかはですね あの種の愛ゆじゅうりー生2 p 4 if you can not find your own x just support the people around you that's already your ex to help others around you that's already your ex people in always get kind of trapped by finding your own ex explore yourself but

supporting someone's ex is already a beautiful way of having an ex. And imagine the football game, soccer game, the people, not only who make goal, but people give a pass to the person who make a goal. It's already recognized, it's already rated for their action. So to become an assistant is already a good ex.アシスタントになることは、 良いXです。 イギリスの例でとてもいいなと思ったのがあります。 I heard this example in England. There is a regulation saying that if they collect the significant number of signatures and submit the petition to the government, they have to create the community garden, community farm in the city.

So there are many people who want to live half-farm, half-ex, live in half-farm, half-ex lifestyle, like in the big city like Tokyo. So if we have enough number of the community garden or city garden, there are a number of people who can actually start with a half-farm, half-ex lifestyle. I think such a mature society, and Iハーフファーマー・ハーフエックス・ライフスタイルを 実現する人が多いと思います 私は、私たちの社会は、 システムとして、そんなに成長していないと思います コーヒー生徒の活動で、 エコソシャリズムとディグロース・コミュニズムが

今、日本で非常に流行っているようです ハーフファーマー・ハーフエックス・ムーブメントとは この作品とは関係しているのですか? そうですね、やはり本を読んでも共感するところがたくさんありますし 私は彼の本を読んで、その中で彼に本の中で、私は彼にとって非常に反応しています。 私は彼が将来、私たちの学者としても、 彼が良い仕事をすることを期待しています。 斉藤孝平は学者です。 ハーフアーム・ハーフエックスは、人々が生きることによって 実現できるプラクティカルなものです。 like, you know, the practical. It's a practice that people actually can implement to their

life. Some people may say half-ama, half-ex is ideal, but some others may say the half-ama, half-ex is something really, you know, concrete, something solid that you can actually do it. It's not like a dream. So it may sound difficult for everyone to find their own X, but what's good about the half-arma half-X is that it points the direction which way to go to the people. So my final questions for both of you, I'd love both of you to answer.ないかなと思います 実はですね、僕は今、ふるさとに住んでたんですけども今のところは、今後もそうする予定です。しかし、私がリスナーにお勧めするのは、若干、生きることが簡単なものです。 例えば、日本では、人々にスイートポテトを使うことをお勧めします。 また、中国のダンプリングに使うことがあります。 私たちはそれをガーリックスープと呼んでいます。

そういったところから、トマトとかをスタートされたらいいんじゃないかなと思います but last year I was growing some herbs like coriander and also beans I think beans is very you know easy to start with it usually grow really without much care so you can just let them go and in Japan I think edamame in edamame beans, they're easy to grow and taste very rich too. And tomato, of course, cucumbers, those are not difficult to grow either. That's my recommendation. Wonderful. Thank you so much, both of you. And really looking forward to sharing this conversation with our audience. Thank you very much, Ella, for inviting us.ありがとうございますこんな素敵な海を越えて

英語圏でもすでにされている方も多いと思うんですけども about the idea that someone in the United States and I thank to the listeners too. You've been listening to an upstream conversation with Mika Furugori and Naoki Shiyomi on the Half Farmer, Half Ex movement. Thank you to Yujiro Kudo for the intermission music and to Carolyn Rader for the cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by me, Robbie. To find links to any of the resources we've mentioned in this interview, please check the show notes. links to any of the resources we've mentioned in this interview, please check the show notes. This episode was brought to you by the Decolonizing Economics Summit, the fourth annual post-capitalism conference from Thursday, April 20th through Saturday,

April 22nd. The conference will be virtual with an in-person Earth Day celebration on April 22nd in McKinleyville, California. We invite you to join us at this radically new look at how to transform our economy from a decolonizing and solidarity economy perspective. Learn more at decolonizingeconomicssummit.org. Also, we're excited to share about a, free course from our friends at Economics for Emancipation. It's a collaboration over decades between grassroots social justice and union organizers and heterodox economists out of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. E4E is a seven-module introductory course which covers economics, politics, and the history of movements for economic justice in the U.S. It creates spaces for learning about alternatives to capitalism

and applying the lessons to craft organizing strategies and community projects. For more, visit www.economics4, that's the number 4, emancipation.net. Support for this episode was provided by the Resist Foundation and listeners like you. Upstream.com podcast.org forward slash support and because we're fiscally sponsored by the non-profit independent arts and media all donations to upstream in the u.s are tax exempt also if your company or organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming episodes we have a number of sponsorship packages available find out more at upstreamcast.org forward slash sponsorship. For more from us, visit upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for updates and post-capitalist memes at Upstream Podcast. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or wherever you listen to your

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