"I want to be a farmer!” shouts my 7 year old. “Me too!” her little sister yells in agreement.
The reason for their newfound agrarian passion? The girls, rosy-cheeked from exertion, have spent the past hour tipping out sacks of dried leaves into a pen, hosing the leaves with water and sprinkling layers of rice bran — before jumping up and down on it all, in rain boots.
Their activities — a traditional fermentation technique for seed planting — are part of a children’s farming class at Japan’s first agriturismo (agricultural tourism) resort, Hoshino Resorts Risonare Nasu, which opened late last year in Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture.