Kobe Dining

Only about 20% of the land in Japan is suitable for growing crops. Even so, most of the country’s population historically survived on subsistence farming. These days only a vanishing few Japanese are farmers, and most of them are only part-time cultivators of the earth. It is, therefore, a much-anticipated treat when the Farmers’ Market in Kobe’s Tarumi Fishing Port opens. On most Saturday mornings, the farmers leave their picturesque mountain farming villages and backyard greenhouses to gather in Tarumi Fishing Port. They bring fresh produce from the farm to sell from tents and the back of trucks. The Kobe farmers are on the front lines of a movement in Japan known as chisan-chisho. Starting in the late 1990s, in the wake of several episodes of unhealthiness in processed food in the country, chisan-chisho seeks to promote the consumption of locally produced food. It began as a grassroots movement but is now embraced by local governments and farmers’ cooperatives interested in preserving and championing the country’s agricultural and rural traditions. The Farmers’ Market in Kobe’s Tarumi Fishing Port is sponsored by Eat Local Kobe. At the Farmers’ Market, city dwellers are encouraged to eat locally and simply. Visitors can meet…