I’m Not Lost. I’m on an Adventure
By Avery Davidson
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation
“I wasn’t walking on water.
I was standing on a reef
When the tide came in.”
-Rush Sweet Miracle
Perspective. Point of view.
Obi Wan Kenobi told Luke Skywalker that Darth Vader betrayed and murdered Anakin Skywalker. Once Luke learned that Darth Vader was his father, he became upset with Obi Wan. The elder Jedi explained that once Anakin became Vader, the previous person ceased to exist and that his first explanation was accurate, “from a certain point of view.”
Downtown Tokyo.
So, why am I spending so much time speaking about perspective? The reasons will become more apparent as you read.
Tokyo is the largest city in the world. More than 38 million people call this Japanese city home. That’s 38 million mouths to feed and it takes an equally large system of food acquisition and distribution to meet that demand. Perspective.
Japan is the #4 buyer of U.S. agricultural products. Exports to Japan in 2018 were valued at $14.7 billion. The total of all U.S. agricultural exports is almost $140 billion per year, so you see how important Japan is to our farmers and ranchers. I know I’m throwing a lot of numbers at you, but, again, perspective.
On January 1, the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement went into effect. The agreement either removed or lowered tariffs on nearly half of all goods the U.S sells to Japan. The tariff on U.S. beef will drop from more than 38% to 9% over the next few years. Japan is already the top export market for U.S. beef. That’s good for ranchers and provides more opportunity for U.S agriculture. Point of view.
A bamboo shoot decorates the top of one warehouse the Ota Wholesale Market.
A place where you see how Tokyo feeds its people is the Ota Wholesale Market. It is the largest market in Japan for fruit, flowers and fish spanning 4.3 million square feet where 3,600 tons of fresh fruit and vegetables every day. It’s operated by the Tokyo Municipal Government. Perspective.
Horns honk as red forklifts and small gray motorized dollies carrying boxes of cabbage, strawberries and sweet potatoes zip down aisles flanked by more boxes of cabbage, strawberries, sweet potatoes, bamboo shoots, daikon radish and other produce. Men and women gather around those stacked boxes. One conducts this seemingly spontaneous gaggle from a stand with a desk. He shouts prices, scans the crowd and whips his hand to the high bidder. Once an auction is done, the stand moves. A new gaggle forms. Perspective.
The bustling floor of the Ota Wholesale Market.
Class XVI broke into three groups to enter the fray of zipping and shouting. My group included LSU Ag Leadership Program Specialist Cheryl Duplechain. She and I share a love of taking pictures; I with my Canon XA35 video camera her with her trusty Nikon D7500 DSLR. So, when we walked into the largest warehouse of the largest market, the camera started rolling, the shutter started snapping and class member Lisa Gillespie watched out for us to make sure those zipping forklifts didn’t unzip us, if you get my meaning. The problem is, all three of us stopped watching the group and then, well, we didn’t see them… anywhere… regardless of how many times we tried to change our perspective, I mean, walk about the entirety of the warehouse. Eventually, after five minutes of not finding the group regardless of our new perspective, Cheryl called class member Ashley Dupree who was in another group. They used Facetime so Ashley’s guide could see where we were. The guide came to get us and led us to our new, now larger, group. As Cheryl pointed out when we were waiting, we were not lost. We were on an adventure. Point of view.