7 Tourist Facilities in Hokuryu Town : 3) Sunflower Village

3) Himawari no Sato

It is located 1.5 km north of the intersection of National Highway 275 and the Doso Zumo Inada line. There is a 2.8 ha sunflower village including the total area (sunflower field NONNO forest, parking lot, etc.) in the Itaya district.

In 1980, the women's club of the agricultural cooperative developed a campaign to plant one hectare of sunflowers per household as a healthy oil for home use, and because of the production adjustment at that time, it became possible to plant sunflowers in rice fields that had been transferred to other crops. The number of sunflowers planted increased dramatically from 4.2 hectares in 1980 to 42 hectares in 1985, a tenfold increase. In 1988, the sunflowers were severely damaged before the harvest due to heavy rainfall, which had never been recorded in the history of our town. It was feared that the sunflowers would disappear from our town. However, the sunflowers continued to be planted after that due to the efforts of the farmers who had worked hard for nearly 10 years.

In 1989, Mr. Waichiro Sawayama, who owned 6 ha of land in the current Sunflower Village (a field opened as a result of the Hokusame Agricultural Land Development Project), asked us to manage his land because he was getting old and was hospitalized due to illness. The young people rose to the occasion and held a series of meetings with various youth organizations during the winter.

On Sunday, May 1, at 5:00 a.m., farmers gathered at Sunflower Village, where the youth members of the Agricultural Cooperative Association drove more than 10 tractors, and the youth members of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and employees of various workplaces dispersed to help with fertilizer and seeding, and successfully plowed and seeded 6 ha in one day. The cooperative's youth team drove more than a dozen tractors.

In 1997, when Mr. Kengo Kuma (designer of the New National Stadium) visited the town, he said, "Hokuryu Town has a wonderful landscape. He suggested that we should make the best use of this landscape in our town development. Not only are there sunflowers in bloom, but the gentle slope is inspiring. He praised the town and said, "This is a wonderful place, and I hope you will make the most of it to create a town that will be a leader in the 21st century!

The town leased the farmland and developed the Sunflower Village, but the town later acquired it in 2004, expanding the area to 23.1 ha in 2006. The land is a gently sloping hill as seen from the national highway, and the sunflowers bloom facing east, creating a spectacular yellow landscape. This sunflower field is the largest in Japan.