Director’s Report:
ARI’s Annual Report for 2023 FY was finally completed last month. It can be downloaded from ari.ac.jp/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/cmyk-Annual-Report-JP-2023-online.pdf (available only in Japanese yet)
The picture on the cover is by Ms. Han Sakawa, a year-long volunteer of 2023. For the last week, the Participants were divided into two groups, one in the Shonai region and the other in the Kawanishi region of Yamagata Pref., and spent the last two days visiting a natural farm, Ureshipamosiri, in Towa-cho, Hanamaki, Iwate Pref. Mr. & Mrs. Sakawa, the couple who started the farm are Han’s parents, and Mr. Sakawa himself is a former ARI volunteer, too. Through their lectures and receiving ARI Participants to their farm ARI, they have shared with us their rich insights and experiences of the practice of “subsistence farming based on permaculture which is a design method for creating a sustainable human living sphere in harmony with the natural environment around us.”