Depopulated Village’s Seven Million US Dollar Media Project for Hope

By Yas Mamemachi

Yamae village, Kumamoto, Japan

Matsumoto and his son standing in a rice paddy with black rice. Black and red rice (behind them) are ancient rice species that contain more protein, vitamins, mineral than white rice. (Photo provided by Yoshihisa Matsumoto)

epopulation is a serious and decades-long issue for Japanese municipalities, about 40% of which are already categorized as depopulated areas, according to a recent report. Yamae village, with a population of about 4,000, in Kumamoto Prefecture is a case in point. Kumamoto is located on the island of Kyushu, the largest western island of the Japanese archipelago.

About a half century ago a peaceful and stable life could be found because of quality firewood production in the remote village, whose population is about 7,000. The country’s top priority of industrialization and dramatic economic progress in the 1960s devalued the village’s main product and lured the village’s young people to high-paid jobs in industrial areas centered in a couple of large cities, such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya.

Recently, Yamae village has been ranked closer to the bottom in terms of municipal inhabitant’s average income in Kumamoto. In fact, the village’s independent tax revenue has accounted for one-fifth of its annual budget in recent years (The remaining budget is chiefly subsidized by the national and the prefectural governments).

“Like many other municipalities with similar problems, the largest working place with high salaries in the village is the village office with 60 staffers (The number will be 55 soon). For instance, an average salary for seven section chiefs is 460,000 yen (US$4,800), which is enormously high when compared to the average monthly income for other villagers. A typical retirement allowance for an officer working for 40 years is about 25 million yen (US$265,000). No other villagers can expect such high retirement benefits, “says Yoshihisa Matsumoto, a four-term village council member since 1995.

He lived abroad for four years--two years in agricultural training in the US and another two years as a government volunteer in Kenya, which is rare in the village.

“One day I wondered why I had left my home village behind and was working overseas for nobody in particular. Was I working for Japan or the developing country? What about my village? Then I thought I should have been working for my home village first,” says Matsumoto.

As a village council member Matsumoto is paid 218,000 yen (US$ 2,300) in salary, which is also a fairly good amount of money for many villagers, squeezed out from the village’s tight budget.

“I don’t know whether my salary is high or not. But the amount is enough to make me feel guilty and responsible for my fellow villagers,” says Matsumoto.

Wonderful life to watch

Consequently, Matsumoto will never accept the slow death of the village. So do many other villagers. They have been searching for their own way to a bright future with TV media projects.

Today a 670 million yen (US$7.1 million) village cable TV/broadband internet project is in progress and scheduled to open in April 2010. The big budget consists of the central government’s subsidy (170 million yen=US$1.8 million) and depopulation bond (500 million yen=US$5.3 million), which depopulated municipalities are allowed to issue for promoting independent development through special legislation.

Seventy percent of repayment of the bond is covered by the local allocation tax, which is central government tax revenues collected from corporate taxes, liquor tax, tobacco tax and others allocated to local governments for the purpose of balancing their diverse tax revenues. This is acknowledged as part of an each local government’s independent tax revenues.

The project has been chiefly promoted by the present village mayor, now in the middle of his second term, and three other villagers, including Matsumoto, who worked as the chief aide to the village mayor in the election of 2002.

An increase in each villager’s income was the village mayor’s key campaign pledge. In order to make the pledge a reality, three projects are in play or actively being considered.

They include developing the village’s specialty products, promoting green tourism and farming life experience for urban residents (both on a research stage), and engaging in information transmission from the village, which has the top priority.

The information transmission project will make TV programs on real and attractive life in the village with the help of the villagers and then send them to TV and cable TV stations in Kumamoto, and hopefully Tokyo, in the future.

“We will engage in positive promotion of our village for the people outside the village. For the fellow villagers, the cable TV programs will involve them in village development activities in progress by sharing information and understanding the realities of the village,” say Matsumoto.

As long as you love the village

The media promotion of the village as part of the village development project started by making a one-hour village story in 1991 and another story about an in-service old bus with the hood in front, which is rarely seen in Japan, in 1993. Both programs were made for the local affiliate of a television network in Kumamoto Prefecture, and were conducted by volunteer villagers, including Matsumoto and the present village mayor, who worked in the village office at the time.

The old bus with Yamae villagers’ pride (Photo from Yamae village official website)

In 2001 a village TV production, the Maroon TV station, was established by villagers engaged in the above-mentioned programs, and in 2003 an internet TV station in the village, Yamae Village TV, started. The Maroon TV station is outsourced to make programs for the internet TV station and will work for the cable station, too.

The old bus story induced nostalgia in many Japanese baby-boomers, gaining fairly large attention all over Japan through the network television news.

“How much future feature stories on the village for the new cable TV will contribute to development of the village, particularly in creating further income opportunities, is uncertain,” says Matsumoto. “But at least we have hope for our future.”

Asked what Yamae village will look like in 2020, “I will be 70 at that time. I think the village will be prosperous with many day-trip visitors from neighboring large cities, like Kumamoto (the capital of the prefecture) and Fukuoka (the center of Kyushu), enjoying clean water and fresh air and buying local rice and vegetables. Some people in Tokyo might buy old farm houses or build their vacation houses here. And I believe we will love them and they will love the village.”