Born in Koriyama in 1976, Koji Nakata is the eldest son of a family of farmers. He studied business at the Tokyo University of Agriculture, then took over the family business in 2005 at the age of 29. Though the farm had originally produced only rice and strawberries, Nakata increased the number of crops grown and expanded production through active market development. The farm was incorporated in 2015.
A philosophy of “growing what the market demands rather than what we want to grow” has led the production of highly profitable leeks, with a current focus on contract farming of scallions and ippon negi onions.

Nakata Farm in Koriyama City is an expert on green onions. With annual scallion and ippon negi shipments of roughly 250 tons, Nakata Farm in the city of Koriyama is an expert in leeks, with raw and processed products distributed not only in Fukushima but also in the Tokyo Metropolitan area and Tokai region, including use of their scallions, which feature tasty leaves, in a major udon noodle restaurant chain. However, since growing leeks only in the city of Koriyama would reduce shipment volume during winter, the company has expanded into Hamadori, a region blessed with good weather even in winter, to start production in the towns of Namie and Tomioka.

In Koriyama, it is difficult to grow crops in the winter, the company began seeking farmland in a location that was relatively mild even in winter and was introduced to farmland in the town of Namie at just the right time. The biggest reason was the stable climate during winter in the Hamadori area.

The most difficult task is to consolidate land, A major appeal of the Hamadori area was that it solved the problem of land consolidation, usually the biggest hardship in farming. However, securing warehouses and sorting centers on a scale required for corporate farming was difficult, and the complexity of farmland conversion and other legal procedures was a major bottleneck. There are also challenges when it comes to securing labor.

There is a plan to increase the area planted with green onions to a total of 18 hectares in the towns of Namie and Tomioka by 2025. While this may be a large amount of land for a green onion farmer, considering that there are 22,000 hectares of fallow land across the 12 municipalities, it is but a small amount in terms of effective land use. In the future, we would also like to grow other crops (grass, soybeans, wheat, etc.) that would make effective use of that land area.

Agriculture is an industry that converts acquired technology into money. Under the current international situation, the cost of the imported fertilizers that we rely on is increasing, but is it possible to make alternative fertilizers by utilizing unused and alternative resources? For example, we would like to see things like compost, chicken manure, bamboo, and sake lees used to develop new fertilizers in an ingenious way.

(Interview in January, 2023)