Farming nurtures people. The main character of “Silver Spoon,” a popular manga on students of an agricultural high school, is not an exception. Being brought up as a son of a company employee, the main character experiences farming for the first time in his life after entering the high school and struggles to grow up.
Hokkaido Obihiro Agricultural High School, which the manga is based on, will be introduced in a high school English textbook. The textbook will include descriptions of students at the school, such as learning the preciousness of life through births and deaths of livestock animals. It will hopefully help convey the joys of farming to high schoolers.
The popularity of “Silver Spoon” has also contributed to increasing the number of female students in agricultural schools not only in rural districts but also in urban areas. At Tokyo Metropolitan Nogyo High School specializing in agriculture, female students occupied 70 percent of newly enrolled students.
The same trend is seen in universities. Women now occupy more than 40 percent of students majoring in agriculture in universities nationwide. Driven by the rising popularity of agriculture-related studies among female students, an agricultural department was newly established in Ryukoku University in Kyoto last year and in Tokushima University in Tokushima Prefecture this year.
In Kumamoto Prefecture, some 1,000 students are enrolled at Tokai University’s School of Agriculture located within the Aso Kuju National Park in Aso. The earthquakes which hit the region last month took away the lives of three of them. Their fellow students must be deeply hurt by their deaths, but the victims’ lost dreams of bearing the future of Japan’s agriculture will definitely be fulfilled by their friends.