After being in Japan nearly fifteen years, more than a decade in Shimane, I’ve met a lot of people, many of them with your standard eight-to-five office jobs, English teachers, eikaiwa owners and restaurateurs. I’ve met people who make and sell stained glass, work in manufacturing and construction workers, but when I met native Japanese Kento Hara and his Italian wife Giovanna, I was really interested by their business.
The couple owns a lifestyle they’ve named Fattoria Natura, which is Italian, meaning Nature Farm. I call this a lifestyle because they not only produce grapes on their small farm, complete with chickens and goats, but have leveraged it into a business that supports their laid back and natural way of life.
Kento, who started his professional career as a photographer, soon turned his attention to the idea of farming and learned to produce some of the tastiest muscats in Shimane, along with sun drying them into truly delicious raisins.
They’ve now hired a small band of people to help them tend, grow and harvest over 3 tones of grapes on 60 ares (1.5 acres or 6000 square meters) of land.
Following their personal policy, Kento and Giovanna have thought outside the box to do all of their farming in the most ecologically friendly way possible, limiting chemicals, forgoing the use of certain types of machinery which are bad for the environment and focusing on producing the best tasting grapes, rather than producing the largest number. And while they could produce more grapes, they rely on experienced and imaginative workers rather than hiring the cheapest labor possible and for that reason have intentionally limited their production to their current levels.
Giovanna, who came to Japan, from Torino (Northern Italy) and met Kento in Tokyo over a decade ago, never really imagined herself being in the grape business, but now is really happy with their lifestyle and couldn’t imagine it any other way, remarking “When we are a little worried the grapes won’t taste good, but we meet customers and they say the grapes are the best, we are really, really happy.”
If you’d like to try Fattoria Natura grapes and raisins you can find them on their website at https://fattorian.thebase.in, connect with them on Instagram or Facebook at @fattorianaturaizumo or find them at the Sunday CiBO Market in Izumo.