3. Sunflower Village
It is located 1.5 km north of the intersection of National Route 275 and the Machike Inada Line. The sunflower village covers a total area of 2.8 hectares in the Itaya district (including the sunflower field Nonno no Mori, parking lot, etc.).
In 1980, the women's division of the agricultural cooperative launched a one-household, one-are campaign to produce healthy oil for the home. At the time, production adjustments were made, making it possible to plant sunflowers in rotated fields. The town provided subsidies for planting, and the agricultural cooperative subsidized the purchase of harvested seeds. As a result, the area planted with sunflowers increased from 4.2 hectares in 1980 to 42 hectares, a tenfold increase, by 1985. In 1988, the town was hit by unprecedented heavy rainfall, which caused great damage even before the sunflower harvest. There were fears that sunflowers would disappear from our town. However, with the determination that had been building up for nearly 10 years, sunflower planting continued.
In 1989, Kazuichiro Sawayama, who owned land in what is now Himawari no Sato (a field opened as part of the Kitaame Farmland Development Project), asked for help in managing his 6 hectares of farmland due to his age and subsequent hospitalization due to illness.The person in charge at the time then reached out to young people, who stepped up and held meetings with various youth organizations over the winter.
Once the snow melted, farmers all became very busy, and they decided to do it for just one day. On Sunday, May 1st, at 5:00 AM, they gathered at Himawari no Sato, where the agricultural cooperative youth group drove around 10 tractors, and the chamber of commerce youth group and employees from each workplace split up to help with fertilizing and seeding, successfully plowing and sowing 6 hectares in one day.
This place became the main field of Sunflower Village, and when Kengo Kuma (designer of the New National Stadium) visited the town in 1997, he said, "Hokuryu Town has a wonderful landscape. We should make use of this to develop the town." It's not just the sunflowers that bloom, but the gentle slope is also moving. He praised the place highly, saying that this is a wonderful place, so he hopes that they will make use of it and aim to develop the town into a leader in the 21st century!
The town leased farmland to develop the sunflower village, but later purchased it in 2004 and expanded it to 23.1 hectares in 2006. The land is a gentle hill when viewed from the national highway, and the sunflowers bloom facing east, creating a spectacular yellow landscape. This sunflower field is the largest in Japan.
