Hiroo Town in Hokkaido offers a program called "Furusato Working Holiday," in which you can stay in the town while experiencing the local primary industry. In this article, I, a sophomore student at Tokyo University of Agriculture, would like to introduce my 11-day "Hiroo Days" as an intern at Kikuchi Farm in Hiroo Town.

First of all

I am a second-year student at Tokyo University of Agriculture who loves to travel. I wanted to experience places, people, food, and culture that I had never seen before, so I decided to participate in the "Furusato Working Holiday" program. I had many encounters and discoveries by getting involved in the "daily lives" of the people who live there, which I could not have gained through sightseeing alone. And those encounters, discoveries, and experiences will last a lifetime.

As a university student from Kanagawa Prefecture, I hope that by sharing my experience of participating in the "Furusato Working Holiday" with many people, I can give back to those who have been involved in the town of Hiroo.

A "Hometown Working Holiday" in Hiroo Town to experience the primary industry

This time, I worked at "Kikuchi Farm," which is involved in everything from milk production to the sixth stage of production, with the hopes of "bringing cows closer to people" and "attracting more people to Hiroo Town. We mainly assisted in the production of processed products and preparations for an event in the Kanto region, as well as experienced grain feeding and milking.

I thought milking was just the same thing over and over again, but each cow has a different udder length and orientation, some cows don't like to be milked, and others are reluctant to be milked. It was understandable that Mr. Kikuchi said, "Cows are just like people.

Raising cows and milking them. It may seem like the same routine, but just like people, each cow is different, and I discovered that dairy farming is a job that is constantly changing.

Mr. Hoshi, a fisherman born and raised in Hiroo, taught me how to make dried kelp. He dries kelp longer than his own height, spreading it out with centrifugal force. Drying kelp is one of the fisherman's jobs, but it is similar to farm work, which is a strange gap. The dried kelp smelled softly of the sea.

Other than that, I participated in a festival at Tokachi Shrine, drove to a roadside station and Cape Erimo, went to a hot spring, processed deer antlers, took cooking classes, and had many other fulfilling experiences related to food and nature in Hiroo Town. I thought the most attractive point of the Hiroo Town Hometown Working Holiday was the diversity of experiences in the primary industry, which is difficult to get into.

Staying at "Seaside House" where people from inside and outside of Hokkaido gather

I stayed at a facility called "Seaside House," which is a combination of a shared house and coworking space managed by the Hiroo Town Agriculture and Forestry Department. There were many people gathered there, including people involved in community development and guests from outside of Hokkaido.

Very thankfully, rental cars were available so we could go shopping freely, and if you can drive, you can move freely and comfortably. For shopping, there was a supermarket, a drugstore, and a convenience store within a 10-minute drive. Also, there is a bathroom, washing machine, kitchen, refrigerator, hair dryer, and other necessities for daily life.