Translator: Masako Kigami Reviewer: Claire Ghyselen
We, Asian people, like it when our rice tastes good, don't we?
Who doesn't?
It would be very sad. I bet you like rice.
Do you know what our rice is made of?
Seeds and other stuff, of course. But also fertilizers.
Do you know what fertilizers are made of? There are various kinds of them.
For example, among chemical ones, nitrogen fertilizers are the most popular.
They are mainly made of natural gas.
Let's take another example. Do you know how a car is produced?
You start with iron ore. Iron ore is transformed into steel sheets.
These steel sheets are then transformed to give shape to cars.
If we substitute automobile with agriculture,
the production plant becomes the fields,
seeds and fertilizers are raw materials necessary to grow the vegetables.
You see, the structures of the production are similar.
In this sense, farmers are engineers.
The job of an engineer consists of using raw materials to create something.
That's the general definition of an engineer.
What kind of image do you have about agriculture?
At least in Japan, the first image you might get,
is all about global competition getting really tough,
about old people in rural areas, and about many fields left unattended.
You get the picture, agriculture is challenging to most people,
Until ten years ago, I was working for a company distributing crops.
These problems are not new to me. Actually, I witnessed them first hand.
As I told you, I think that farmers are engineers.
When an engineer faces a problems, he solvesthem with some technology.
That's the way engineers are wired.
Let me explain you how we are dealing with technology development today.
I'll keep it brief because I can't tell about our core technology.
(Laughter)
Let's keep in mind what happens in other industries.
This is the price evolution of pesticides and fertilizers.
They are increasing progressively.
Look at the price increase of fertilizer: how can we avoid it and grow vegetables
without using any fertilizers and any pesticides?
What kind of agriculture would that be?
That's an interesting crossroad and we need to take a decision.
It isvery difficult to grow pesticide-free vegetables.
It depends on species, too, but generally speaking, it's tough.
What is your image of pesticide-free vegetables?
Without pesticides, insects will eat your vegetables and your fruits.
If you do not use pesticides,
it's inefficient, time-consuming, and makes business unprofitable.
Even if you set a high price, it's not profitable.
Many people think like that.
When I was working for the crop distributor, everyone told me,
"It's impossible to grow without pesticides."
There are a few farmers producing under natural conditions.
They represent 0.2% of the total agro-food production.
The data is a little bit old.
In other words, bio-agriculture farmers approved by the government
represents 0.2% of the production.
Some farmers are going bio without requesting
the authenticity approval from the government.
It may be more than 0.2% now. So it is difficult.
The number of bio-farmers is extremely small.
It doesn't mean zero.
This field is Kyotango City, in the north of Kyoto.
I met Mr. Aoki in Kyotango City in my previous job.
He has grown awesome vegetables without pesticides and fertilizers.
If we growwith his techniques, we could solve various problems.
Anyone, anywhere, could grow his veggies.
That was the trigger for me to start my business venture.
I recruited staff familiar with biological science.
We asked Mr. Aoki to let us survey his field duringtwo years,
to understand what exactly is happening when he grows veggies without pesticides.
We found out many things. I'll tell you the story of my friend.
Sakurai City, Nara, he's a friend from university time
and worked two years on the survey in Kyoto.
When the survey was over, he decided to become a farmer.
He doesn't come from a farming family. His experience was very limited.
But that was his decision and he established "Select Farm".
We decided to work together and to go on with the fact-findings.
I gave him the two-years research data and he could make good use of the info.
So what's happened?
He could grow vegetables as soon as the first year.
Cabbage is one of the most difficult vegetables to grow,
especially under biological conditions.
But his cabbage looked great. This is a basil of this year.
And that, that's a daikon, giant radish, from last year.
My friend grows 60 to 70 species of vegetables at Select Farm.
This is a broccoli picked up a few years ago but this one, is new.
Without pesticide, it's impossible not to get any insects on the vegetables.
There are no insects on my friend's vegetables.
If you do it right, there are nearly no insects.
People say, "Finding insect is a sign of freshness. They taste better."
No way. Vegetables without insects taste much better.
The taste that we like is different from the taste that insect prefer.
Usually, what insects like, we don't.
So, if you do it right, you can grow awesome vegetables without pesticides.
He could save much time by not having to clean the veggie s from insects.
Needless to say, he could save time by not spraying any pesticide too.
It's a very hard work to spray.
When we spray pesticide, we wear a kind of long raincoat, even in hot summer.
and we backpack a heavy pesticide tank equipped with a sprayer.
It's painstaking but we don't need to endure it anymore.
This broccoli grew more quickly and stronger than weeds.
As a result, my friend does not need to remove weeds: more time saving.
As I said, this is a broccoli from today.
This cabbage is just out of the field. The season has started.
This is what it looks like in the field. Did you know that?
I didn't buy it at the supermarket. It's an authentic one from Select Farm.
We still have many issues to clear, but we've already cleared two major ones.
The first barrier was to grow vegetables without pesticide and fertilizers.
We can do it anywhere, actually.
The second is, without much experience,
you can grow them when you know how to do it.
Of course, with experience, will come expertise.
We will get better at growing bio veggies.
So we can grow nice vegetables even without experience.
It sounds obvious but actually, it was not.
when we started, many professionals, college teachers and farmers,
told us it was impossible, "Don't do that! You will fail!"
Everyone was telling us to stop it.
Should we have followed their advices, we wouldn't be here today.
We wouldn't even have tried it.
It's easy to advice someone to question common sense.
But it's not easily done. What is your angle to question it?
That's not easy at all.
Today I talked only about the good things. Actually, there were many failures too.
When you face a problem, the best start to tackle it, is to observe the facts.
What are the facts that may explain the situation?
Can we determine the underlying reasons for these facts?
Let's try to find out some evidences.
What happens if we modify the environment? How does the situation evolve?
Construct a few hypothetical environments and think about them.
Even though the story comes from pros and veteran farmers,
you need to investigate their reasoning deeply.
You might be surprised to realize there is little evidence to support it.
That's the opportunity that you are looking for.
If you check the evidence and use it correctly,
it opens a new window, your business chance.
There are many closed windows in our society.
There are many ways that are waiting for us to be discovered.
About three weeks ago, I cut a bamboo forest.
The bamboo trees weretwice my size. It was very hard.
I did it to grow more vegetable.
I would like as many people as possible to taste and appreciate them.
So I cut the bamboo to make more room for my vegetable fields.
Thank you.
(Applause)