For the 21st Century Japanese Nature Positive: Meiji University Kurokawa Farm

 

Kurokawa in Aso Ward of Kawasaki is an old community. It was a typical Satoyama village where farmers cultivated rice and veggies. They tended their hills with deciduous broad leaved trees for procuring logs as fuel and fallen leaves as mulches for their farms. They hand-crafted bamboo baskets made of many kinds of bamboos taken from their land and sold it as “Made-in-Kurokawa” brand in the old market of Hachioji where many people gathered for trade in hilly part of Kanto region (; my posts for December 8 and 15, 2024). The place still preserves the atmosphere of such idyllic life of yesteryears. Yet, we encounter the big road when we enter Kurokawa Forest from Haruhino Station side and go north. It is Tokyo Metropolitan Road 158 administered by Tokyo, not Kanagawa. Kurokawa Forest is on the border between Tokyo and Kanagawa. The mass of condos beyond Route 158 is the show of the biggest housing project in Japan, Tama New Town.

The crossing which demarcate
the old Kurokawa community
and suburban housing area.

As this location tells, Kurokawa experienced many transformations from the days of Kurokawa-brand bamboo basket. After 1945, the end of WWII, a part of Kurokawa became a ground for the US troops for their mission, perhaps of security something. When the mass development of Tama New Town went on in the 1960s, American part of the forest was a property of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, not farmers, which bought the land and used it for testing their gears in their product development. By the 1990s, the company concluded using the land for such purposes in the middle of housing development of Tokyo was the unnecessary burden of property tax. They decided to sell it to somebody. That somebody turned out to be Meiji University. The university has the campus for the Faculty of Agriculture in Ikuta, Kawasaki, and looked around nearby larger land for their experimental farm. In 2012, the former ground for mechanical heavy equipment was reopened as an educational space for young people who plan to be a part of food industry in near future. The entire area of Meiji University Kurokawa Farm is currently off limit for public. There is a gate at its entrance where the security people check a proper ID. This winter, I happened to have a chance to attend a course there for Satoyama management by Prof. Noboru Kuramoto. This week, I tell you my impressions from the experimental farm.

Lecture building for Kurokawa Farm

The location of the campus is really at the end of Kawasaki City. We get off the Odakyu Tama Line at Kurokawa Station and walk to the Ceresamos Kawasaki farmers’ market. Walk around the Ceresamos ground and we find a road on our right which is an exit route when we visited art show in Kurokawa Forest (; my post for December 2, 2022). This time, we ignore the direction of art-show and proceed simply straight in rice paddies. Eventually, we meet a crossing of community roads. Take the left route which soon (10m or so ahead) returns straight road with a row of greenhouses on our right and bamboo forest on our left. The road curves gently to the right. We find white buildings over there beyond the hill which is Martial Arts Hall for Tama Campus of Kokushikan University where many athletes reside. And the gate for Kurokawa Farm is in front of us.

Ceresamos

Turning the corner of Ceresamos, please go straight.

In autumn,
the harvested rice was dried in a traditional way
in Kurokawa.

The crossing. Please take directions for green houses.

The road gently curves to the right.

The buildings for Martial Arts

The security gate for the farm.

From the gate, one paved road goes up a hill. When the university redeveloped the former testing ground of heavy industry, young Prof. Kuramoto was a person who was in charge of project management. At the beginning, he wished the slope would eventually invite fireflies dancing in June from a stream running on another side of the hill. According to him, such thing has not happened so far, as the stream on the other side was experienced the public works for flood control with U-shaped ditch, i.e. concreted. Anyway, the name of the slope is Firefly Slope. At the end of the slope are campus buildings such as Lecture Building, labs, and special warehouses for organic farming. These buildings are surrounded by experimental farming fields. Prof. Kuramoto said before these fields were mechanical testing ground for Mitsubishi enclosed by small hills with ups and downs. To teach students the recent mechanization in agriculture, such ups and downs were not desirable. So, the design of the place ordered the hills to be flattened. The excavated soil, by-product of civil engineering, was piled up as a new hill next to the security check point.

Firefly slope

Glass houses for experiments

Lecture rooms and labs

The experimental field after the excavation is surrounded by ridges of small hills that maintain old trees of Satoyama Kurokawa. They are mainly Quercus acutissima and Quercus serrata which before were nurtured for logs, charcoal baking, and fallen leaves for mulches. They are now very large trees as such utilization of them have stopped about 80 years ago when Americans came Kurokawa. A part of such old forest is utilized to search for the 21st century way of maintaining Satoyama forest. The constraint these days for such effort is labor shortage and proper utilization of knowledge for Satoyama ecosystems. In Satoyama restoration area of the university campus staff starting from professors to engineers in charge of the space experiment new gadgets (“mowing machine for USD 7000 a pop, anyone?”) and practical methods of restoration Satoyama forest that is tailor-made for Kurokawa’s climate.

Experimental cabbage patches, organic, of course.

The farmland is surrounded by old forests.

A mowing machine at the price of entry level of Porche.

A demonstration for moving heavy logs by mechanization

Having said that, Prof. Kuramoto and his team are facing budget constraints of the university. The administration requires long-term stability of the farm’s management. It means the faculty has to choose sooner or later to keep the forest of deciduous trees with frequent mowing, thinning, etc., OR to let evergreen Quercus myrsinifolia dominate the farm. Climax forest for the climate of Tama Hills is of Quercus myrsinifolia. As it is evergreen broadleaved tree, the forest of them is dark. Its forest floor starves for sunshine and ground vegetation has hard time to thrive. Money wise, the maintenance of such climax forest is economical due to its relatively poor ecology. Moreover, before humans started to manage the forest probably thousands of years ago, the forest of Kurokawa area must have been dark forest of Quercus myrsinifolia. The choice the faculty faces is an ultimate kind searching for the meaning of “Nature Positive.” The life cycle of a forest is far longer than for humans. This choice is difficult …

The current forest for Satoyama experiment.
With deciduous trees,
during fall and winter lots of sunshine come to the ground.

The newly created hill by the excavated soil next to the security check point encloses a small semi-dried valley. Its old water source is to the west somewhere on the hill surrounding the university farm. The valley is now sandwiched between the artificial mound to its north shore and the original hill of Satoyama time for the south bank. The university is hoping to make this part of their land public “park” where local people can come and enjoy strolling. At the moment, the plan is yet at a “hoping” stage. The end of the valley is a holding basin gathering water of the valley (a bit) and of the experimental field upstairs (the majority of the water). There is a discussion among faculty members how to proceed for the “park.” Prof. Kuramoto is an expert for Satoyama ecosystem. University also has professors for civil engineering and hydrology. As this is the matter of academia, the discussion keeps on going …

The entrance for the would-be park.
The depression on the left of the photo is a holding basin.

The inside of the “park” site has
lots of such trees with divided trunks.
It is evidence this place was once
a ground of procuring logs for fuel.
Normally, people regularly cut trees of
about 20 years old with 20cm or so diameter.
It was a nice size
to make logs and bake charcoals.
Such tradition was stopped
some 80 years ago in Kurokawa.
 Trees were left on their own devices
and have become tall trees like this now.

The forest floor of the planned “park.”
When the place was working Satoyama,
the floor was swept completely by
gathering leaves and twigs by farmers.
They used them for mulches over their farm land
 and for starters of their hearth fire.
 It made the Satoyama forest floor
 relatively nutrition-poor,
and hence with high biodiversity by lots of sunshine
 directly on the soil.

In addition to such technical discussions for Satoyama restoration, the university also thinks how to establish a solid connection with the traditional Kurokawa community. The community itself undergoes generational change now with the transfer of ownership from the landlords of 2012 to their descendants. As Kurokawa is designated as an Urbanization Control Area, and there is happening a renaissance for urban farming in suburbs of Tokyo, new and young landlords are constructive for managing Kurokawa area for the 21st century agriculture. But it is a different matter if they regard the closed area of academia is a part of their community ... Maybe, the forest of Kurokawa Farm stands at a unique position as a 21st century Satoyama Forest. Satoyama is Japanese way of achieving Nature Positive = cooperations of human life and Mother nature. Let us wait for the conclusion the academia of Meiji University will reach.

Could you figure out
a trace of some “campfire” on the ground?
It is at the end of January
on a rice field near the Kurokawa Farm.
This is a sort of “sacred” place
where the Kurokawa community holds a ritual
 called Sagicho 左義長 for the end of New Year’s festival
 for many many years as long as they remember.
 The tradition is living in Kurokawa community.

Kurokawa Farm of Meiji University 明治大学黒川農場
2060-1 Kurokawa, Aso-ku, Kawasaki, 215-0035
〒215-0035 神奈川県川崎市麻生区黒川2060-1
TEL ： 044-980-5300 

E-mail : noujou@meiji.ac.jp