"Where do you sell all this?" I ask.
"I sell it to JA." he replies. [JA is the agricultural co-operative that aids and guides farmers throughout Japan. It allows small scale farming to continue to be a lucrative prospect by providing subsidies and a medium through which farm products can be bought and sold.]
"Do you grow anything else besides nasu?" I ask.
"I also grow rice and okra." He replies.
"So what percentage do you grow of each?"
He and his wife ponder for a moment and then agree on the figures. It turns out that about 70 percent of his crop yield is rice, while nasu and okra yield about 25 and 5 percent, respectively. But of the three, nasu is by far the most lucrative, as its sale comprises about 90 percent of his annual farm earnings.
"So how long have you been a farmer?" I ask.
"About eight years," he replies, "I was a 'salaryman' before."
"Which do you prefer?" I inquire, hoping he'll wax poetic about the merits of tilling the soil.
"Being a salaryman," he says with a laugh. "But my father was a nasu farmer before me, and when he became to old to continue his work, I took over." It’s common, he tells me, for farms to be passed down from the older generation to the next, the duty often falling to the oldest son. It seems with him, however, the agricultural dynasty is at an end.
"My son is a fireman. He doesn't want to be a farmer," he says, though without disapproval. With new opportunities awaiting the younger generation, all around the prefecture primogeniture has lessened its hold on people's futures.