Revive the Earth: The Challenge of the Chicken Poultry and Farmers, Revolution in Mima County (1994)

Revive the Earth: The Challenge of the Chicken Poultry and Farmers, Revolution in Mima County (1994)

In the 1990s, Japan was seeking a path toward a "recycling-oriented society. Mima County, Tokushima Prefecture. In this poultry farming area, 140,000 tons of chicken manure was dumped into rivers and mountains every year, threatening the lives of residents with water pollution and foul odors. In 1994, local farmers and businesses joined forces to establish a third-sector company, the Mima Compost Center. The center has established composting facilities at eight locations in the county, and has built a system to collect and process all the discharged chicken manure. The collected materials are transformed into high-quality compost and supplied to local farmers, thus creating a system where the environment and agriculture coexist in harmony. This initiative not only erased the stigma of the region as a "dung-polluted" area, but also attracted nationwide attention as a pioneering example of organic farming promotion. This attempt to restore the cycle of life in defiance of the a
ge of mass production and mass disposal proved that there is hope for environmental revitalization in rural areas. Chicken manure is no longer a pollutant, but a source of fertility that revives the earth.