Hinata Farms is a small Japanese heritage farm in the south side of Chicago, Illinois run by the Japanese-American, Chicago-born-and-raised Rachel Nami Kimura.
Nami embraces Fukuoka Masanobu’s permaculture techniques, laid out famously in his book The One Straw Revolution. As seen here, the thick, fat, resilient negi (green onions) is surrounded by a thriving ecosystem of weeds and insects. Seen by some as undesirable or insignificant, for myself and many others who visit this space, this is the familiar, the portal to memories of inaka (countryside) Japan. Walking along the bountiful negi, the majority-Japanese-American volunteers harvest shared memories.
As an urban farmer, Nami maintains an additional ecosystem of textures—that of the train, sirens, barking dogs, questions from passersby and other farmers, and greetings and trades from chefs, herbalists, family members, and other volunteers. For, the diversity, stability, and resilience of urban agriculture requires its own kind of permaculture too.
Cultural Geography Specialty Group 