Shigetsugu Ikemoto and Yoshie Ikemoto
(Wakimachi, Miyoshi City)

The farmers’ market opens every Sunday and sells vegetables and processed products from the local Otani area.

Mr. Shigetsugu Ikemoto is the head of the Farmers’ Market Management Council, and he cultivates vegetables for sale in the market with his wife, Mrs. Yoshie.

Mr. and Mrs. Ikemoto have grown tobacco leaves for approximately 30 years. Subsequently, they raised poultry and grew soba and vegetable seeds. Currently, they grow a variety of vegetables each season and sell them directly in the market. The market also has a soba noodle shop, where visitors can eat soba and udon noodles made by Mrs. Yoshie. The soba she made is very popular because of its thickness, flavor, and taste. The soba shop offers a hands-on soba-making experience that attracts visitors from outside the prefecture during summer vacation.

The number of people shipping vegetables to the market is decreasing due to the aging of farmers in the Otani area.
Mr. Shigetsugu said, “I wish more young people would work in farming and soba noodle making.