Aquaponics for Japan: Challenging the Hegemony of an Anachronistic Agricultural Bureaucracy

July 19, 2012 | Aragon St-Charles

The following guest post was written by Aragon St-Charles, who founded Japan Aquaponics in June of 2011 after the great earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Through this social enterprise, St-Charles aims to introduce and promote aquaponics in Japan to increase food security and insure against disruptions to the food system.

Agriculture in Japan offers a tantalizing glimpse into the past, into an era of millions of small home farms of less than a few acres providing for family sustenance and hopefully a little extra to take to market. Given the high tech reputation of Japan this may seem to be at odds with our perception of the country, and yet with the average farmer and his wife (both heartwarmingly sharing the back-breaking work) being nearly 70 years old and farming less than 5 acres of land, the dichotomy is very real. Read More