For the month of December, Domingo is collaborating with "Yubari City" to introduce sightseeing spots, foods, and specialties of the city. This time, we will introduce "soba" (buckwheat noodles), which is grown in Yubari City using a special farming method. Let's explore the safe and secure Yubari-grown buckwheat, which is JAS organic certified.

The first buckwheat produced in Yubari City to obtain JAS organic certification

When one thinks of soba production areas in Hokkaido, the names that come to mind for many people are Horokanai and Shintoku.
Did you know that there is also a buckwheat farm in Yubari City?

Ono Farm, located in the Momijiyama district of Yubari City, has been growing soba for about 10 years. We spoke with Hiroshi Motozawa, the current representative of the farm.

Ono Farm uses plenty of "rice bran" and "fully-ripened compost" to incorporate natural microorganisms into the soil, and is committed to healthy soil.　In 2021, we obtained JAS organic certification for soba (buckwheat noodles) grown using our special farming methods, and we are actively working to ensure the safety and security of our farm products. This is the first time that Yubari City has obtained JAS organic certification. Ono Noen's willingness to take on new challenges is one of its characteristics.

Image courtesy of Ono Farm

Soba prefers a cool, dry climate with a temperature difference between day and night, where fog tends to form, he says.

In Yubari, we are especially close to a river, so we get river fog," he says. I think we have a climate here that is competitive with other production areas. We don't want to produce a lot of buckwheat at a low price; we want to make it rare with safe and secure buckwheat that is grown organically.

Yubari is famous for its "curry soba" (buckwheat noodles), but the fact that there were no soba farmers in the city is an opportunity for the city to create delicious soba that will make local soba shops say, "We want to use Ono Farm's soba! We aim to produce delicious soba so that local soba shops will recognize our products and say, "We want to use Ono Farm's soba!

Giving value to Yubari's "unused" resources

The name of the soba produced by Ono Farm is "Yubari Yam Soba. This product is characterized not only by the agricultural method of using rice bran and compost for buckwheat cultivation. As the name of the product suggests, it uses "yam," a specialty of Yubari that is known for its stickiness and sweetness.

Image courtesy of Ono Farm

Since the production of yam has been popular in Yubari City for a long time, there used to be a company that produced and sold yam shochu (distilled spirit). The company bought out-of-spec yam and used it as an ingredient for yam shochu. However, with the financial collapse of Yubari City, the production of yam shochu was stopped. The out-of-specification yams were forced to go elsewhere.

Mr. Motosawa of Ono Farm noticed this and came up with the idea of using yams to make soba noodles.

In the past, there were buyers who would buy out-of-spec products, so farmers had a lot of motivation to produce yams," he says. But now that they are no longer available, we wanted to make effective use of the unused resource of yams. We thought it would be a good idea to make yam yam and knead it into noodles, so we commercialized it.

Image courtesy of Ono Noen

Ono Noen's original "Yubari Nagaimo Soba" is a combination of Ono Noen's soba noodles "Rera-no-Kaori" and Yumechikara wheat produced in Yubari City, with yam from Yubari City as the binder.
The soba has the robust flavor of Ono Farm's buckwheat noodles and the sweetness of Yubari City-grown yams.

■ Products of this present campaign

The product of this present campaign is "Sumitetsu Minato Soba.

This is a product inspired by the image of "coal mines, steel, railroads, and ports" by combining ingredients from Sorachi, Muroran, and Otaru regions into one menu,
Sorachi area: Yubari yam soba noodles (Yubari City, Ono Farm)
Sorachi area: Bonito Furidashi with Salmon Bushi (Mimika Co., Ltd., Naganuma Town)
Muroran area: Quail eggs (Quail Garden, Muroran City)
Otaru area: yamorokonbu (kelp with grated yam) (Yujiro Motono Shoten, Otaru City)
The set includes

Taxpayers can choose a special package of "Sumitetsu Minato Soba" designed by students of Yubari High School as a return gift when they pay tax to Yubari City.
This is an initiative of the Hokkaido CLASS Project (Earth Science Collaboration Activity Promotion Demonstration Project) in which third-year students of Yubari High School studied the history and background of "Sumitetsu Port" and the region in cooperation with local businesses, developed the shape and design as a group through commerce classes, professional lectures, and market research, and incorporated them into four products We are looking forward to seeing you at the Furusato Festival!

Please check out the hometown.

■From management consultant to representative of Ono Farm

Although Mr. Motosawa is a "farmer," the more I listened to his story, the more I got the impression that he is completely different from the image of a farmer that I had in my mind.

As it turns out, Ono Noen and Mr. Motozawa were originally involved as "a farm that wanted to eliminate its deficit" and "a management consultant. While focusing on sales channel development, 6th industrialization, and eco-farmer certification to improve management, Mr. Motozawa felt the need to make changes to the farm's structure and strategy, and became the owner of Ono Noen, a serious farmer.

Mr. Motozawa's unique background as a management consultant turned farm owner allows him to manage the farm from the perspective of business and sales promotion.

Mr. Motosawa, who specializes in product development and sales channel development, not only produces and sells produce at Ono Farm, but has also begun branding food products already available in Yubari.

Take, for example, "Bari Mitsu," a honey produced in Yubari City.
This honey is made from the linden flowers, which are abundant in the mountains around here, and the buckwheat flowers from Ono Farm. The refreshing cinnabar with buckwheat and the moderate richness of the flavor is unique to this location.

Image courtesy of Ono Farm

In fact, this "Bari Mitsu" allows you to compare honey collected at 10 different locations in Yubari City.

I was so surprised at how different the tastes were when I tasted the honey from all 10 places in Yubari City, and I wanted to make it a weapon. I thought that if we could separate the honey from this area and the honey from this area, it would be a good opportunity for people who have memories of Yubari to remember that there were flowers like that on that mountain.

He hopes to work with beekeepers to develop products, which will be sold as tax return gifts and at roadside stations.

With two units of Furusato tax payment, you can compare all the honeys collected at 10 locations in Yubari, so please check it out if you are interested.

From Management Consultant to Representative of Ono Farm

Mr. Motosawa is from Yubari. Because he worked as a management consultant deeply involved in the local community, he says he wants to change the image of his hometown Yubari.

Many people are leaving farming due to old age, and there is a lot of unused farmland left over in Yubari City.

Nowadays, more and more young people are becoming farmers," he says. If the image of Yubari City is that if you start a farm in Yubari City, you have to grow only Yubari melons, I don't think anyone will come. Therefore, I would like farmers like us who do not grow Yubari melons to do various things for the outside community, so that people will have the image that "It's OK to grow crops other than Yubari melons! I want people to have the image that it is OK to grow crops other than Yubari melons. I hope that farmers will eventually consider farming in Yubari, with the feeling that if they want to grow Yubari melons, they can grow Yubari melons.

He also wants to set up a system that will make it easier for the many people who support Yubari to support Yubari.

When we go to events, many people buy our products saying, 'I support Yubari. I would like to create a system that will somehow connect the thoughts of people who want to support Yubari, even if they don't feel like paying taxes to the hometown, to the city's revenue.

I felt a new wind blowing through Mr. Motosawa's ability to conceive and execute ideas that will gradually change the image of Yubari.