In February, even though it was the farming off-season, all kinds of preparations moved forward — making miso, preparing rice seedbeds, sifting compost, sowing summer vegetable seeds, DIY work on the processing space. At the same time, work began on the JGAP application, and I also started fundraising and hiring part-time staff, laying down the foundations of the business.

In March, the spring bancha harvest began, and setting up the processing space, forming ridges, planting potatoes, and inoculating shiitake logs all moved forward alongside it, all in preparation for spring proper. The JGAP application was a struggle with its sheer complexity, but it kept steadily progressing. Having a base in Nara also meant more connections with local farmers, and by this point I was starting to picture new kinds of tea to try — oolong tea and three-year bancha among them.

On April 18th, we brought in the expert Kenji Sakai and carried out work to improve the tea field's environment. It meant everyone digging trenches and point-holes into a field where water and air had stopped moving.

For years, the landowner had told us this field was too far gone to revive. So when I saw a huge amount of water come gushing out of it, I felt, powerfully, that it really could come back to life.

With the rainy season starting earlier than usual, the tea harvest season began in early June. Harvesting the first tea, making black tea, planting summer vegetables, transplanting rice, weeding, harvesting bancha — I got through the busiest season of the year as a tea farmer, all while also keeping up with design work and updating the website.

In July, the JGAP certification I'd been hoping for finally arrived, officially. Having organic JAS, Shumei Natural Agriculture certification, and JGAP all in place at once was something I felt genuinely proud of.

August was mostly spent on weeding and visiting business partners, and I was able to take a proper summer break for the first time in a while. Around this time, talk of a new project in Canada came up, and the seeds of an overseas connection began to sprout.

In September my sister went on maternity leave, and in October she gave birth. From here, running the company single-handedly began. Around this time I was also visiting our partner welfare facility about twice a week. At the same time, two students from Kwansei Gakuin University and Kansai Gaidai University started working with us part-time, and young people living nearby became an immediate asset. We also hosted a farming-experience camp — this was the month our system of running the operation while nurturing the younger generation started to really take shape.

In October we finished the rice harvest, taking on rice-growing with members of the welfare facility, doing as much of it by hand as we could, right from the start. "So this is how rice is made" — it turned into a harvest season we all learned from together, more enjoyable than usual.

We prepared a booth for young producers ahead of the memorial festival in April and May, and at the end-of-month meeting, the idea of "let's build a young producers' brand" came up.

In November I had the chance to give a talk at an organic farming gathering in Nagahama, and at the Thanksgiving festival we put real effort into the young producers' booth, lining up processed goods from fellow producers alongside our own.

In December, alongside shipping the Thanksgiving gift sets, harvesting winter vegetables, and making miso and koji, we also held an off-site meeting with the management team.

It was a year in which I really felt how much the young producers' group we'd kept going since 2018 had grown, gaining so many new friends along the way. A new goal was voiced too — "I want to try running a farming school" — and next year's activities (a gathering with senior producers, a camp for young producers, a training trip to Hokkaido, and more) were already starting to take concrete shape.