Our Future Homestead

We have decided that we want to live permanently in Japan, which is why we’re going through this complicated process to start our business there! Evan has a lifelong connection with Japan, and through his appreciation of the culture, Dani has come to appreciate it as well. We hope to start a family, and it’s important to us to raise them in a rural environment, with a connection to our neighbors, and the neighboring communities. We have a strong desire to breathe life back into an ‘akiya’ (abandoned home), that may otherwise remain uninhabited. This is why we choose Japan to re-build our homestead business.

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We chose the specific prefecture and municipality based on a number of reasons:

• The climate is desirable for our business, and for our personal preferences.

• The location in Japan is desirable:
  • The distance to the public transportation and train system;
  • The distance to neighboring towns and cities for business and personal enjoyment.

• The level of tourism is desirable, and seems to be synergistic with our business plan.

• The cost of rural properties, and the available akiya homes, are both desirable.

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We plan to start a multi-faceted farm business, focusing on honeybees, vegetable production, and chicken eggs:

• Honeybee Products: Our main products will be comb honey (巣 蜜), which is considered the most exquisite honey-eating experience, and royal jelly, which has known health benefits.

• Vegetable Products: Our farm will also include a Traditional Market Garden producing salad greens, herbs, radishes, and carrots. We will also plant a field to rotate summer renge with winter barley and wheat, which will also produce grains and fodder. Both of these will help supplement income in the first few years

• Other Products: We will keep a flock of chickens to produce organic free-range chicken eggs. Our flock will be a blend of traditional American and Japanese breeds, and we would consider developing a breeding program for some of the rare or disappearing Japanese breeds.

Our goal is to create a well-rounded, sustainable, healthy lifestyle for ourselves, and those around us. Declining agricultural production is a worldwide problem, but especially in Japan. Modern food production methods are detrimental to individual health and the environment. Japan is unsustainably dependent on food imports. Demand for honey and other bee products is growing as people become more health-conscious and return to a simpler lifestyle, while domestic production is decreasing. Traditional beekeeping uses methods which damage the bees’ health, increasing disease and lowering productivity. Our self-designed hive boxes are more healthy for the bees, more affordable, and easier to operate [see 2. (5)]. Honeybees have a good public image and honey is delicious, so we can use our business to popularize regenerative agriculture.

• Ecosystem Improvements:
  • An increase in all pollinator species leads to greater productivity of all crops.
  • An increase in predator insect species leads to less pests and less need for pesticide.
  • Our forest and farmland will be managed in a way that regenerates the soil health, which means that, instead of using chemical fertilizers, we will be producing organic soil additives (biochar and compost).

• Educational Programs, Community Outreach, and Agro-Tourism:
  • We intend to be very involved in the local community:
    • We will host educational workshops on various topics: how to cultivate pollinator gardens in your own backyard, micro ecosystem regeneration, soil regeneration, basic gardening instruction, general food preservation and fermentation, how to make biochar, chicken husbandry, etc.
    • We will host pop-up farm-to-table dining events.
    • We plan to volunteer our time with local synergistic organizations.
  • We will create educational and entertaining YouTube videos and social media content (in Japanese and English) for the local and global community, covering a variety of topics:
    • Living as foreigners in Japan, remodeling our akiya home, and embracing the Japanese culture, which will help increase foreign and domestic appreciation for rural life.
    • Highly detailed videos about our farming practices, daily life, and the progress of growing our business, which will demonstrate that regenerative farming practices can be implemented by anyone.
    • We will also document all of these processes with professional photography, for educational purposes, and also simply for enjoyment of the beautiful Japanese countryside.
  • These two factors together, could help create more reasons for people to travel to the local area:
    • We will manage an AirBnB for foreign and domestic tourists, who wish to experience rural farm life.

Thank you for your support,
Dani & Evan Benton

Evan + Dani Benton

Our Former Homestead