STORY: At 77 years old, Yasuyuki Kurosawa keeps tending his crops, in spite of record high temperatures and sweltering weather that suffocated Japan this summer.
He is among Japan’s increasingly elderly farmers, who are at a greater risk than most people of falling ill, or even dying, from working in the heat.
But Kurosawa feels he has no choice but to keep working.
“There are three of us including my daughter working here so I can’t just leave. Honestly, I’m working hard to get things ready in time.”
“There’s a lot of noise about heat stroke, so we farmers are taking precautions as we should like avoiding the midday as much as possible and moving around in the morning or evening.”
The family grow rice, cabbage, wheat and corn in the central Gunma prefecture.
Kurosawa’s 39 year-old son, Yukihiro, works the farm alongside his father. He said he drinks about 10 bottles of liquid a day to keep hydrated and wears a jacket that has fans attached.
“I’m definitely worried that it’s getting hotter and hotter every year, but you can’t change the season so even when it’s hot we have to take some precautions and go out and do what we have to do. I don’t think we have any choice but to do it, even when we feel uneasy about it.”
Almost 70% of Japan’s 1.4 million farmers are aged 65 and above.
In 2022, 29 farmers died from heatstroke.
This July, the number of people working in farming and fishing who were taken to hospital due to heatstroke was 877, nearly five times the number in June, according to the fire and disaster management agency.
