The year 6 of Reiwa began with the shocking Noto earthquake. With damage caused by heavy rains in September and slow progress in recovery, this year has been a turbulent one with many historically unfortunate events across the globe.

One bright spot in this situation is the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo). I sincerely hope that this will become a great ray of hope and a great wave for people wishing for peace all over the world. I would like to once again remember the many years of suffering of the atomic bomb survivors and pay my respects to their efforts and hardships.

Also, as a fellow Iwate resident, I am very excited and proud of the achievements of Shohei Otani. It is truly amazing that he achieved such a feat, the first time in the history of baseball. Iwate has long produced many talented people of great calibre. I think that Iwate has the temperament, spirit, and innate strength to do so. I was able to share the same era as Otani, breathe the same air nearby (I heard that he was practicing with a little league team in Ichinoseki), and I feel as happy as if it were my own achievement.

Our company, the Wakaba Organic Fertilizer Center, was also awarded the Director-General of the Livestock Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries for its efforts.
Organic Fertilizer Center Wakaba is at the "key position" of our company's recycling-oriented agriculture. I think that the high evaluation is the result of the steady and diligent efforts of our staff over the past 20 years. It is something that I am really proud of.
Our late founder, Teruo Hashimoto, was quick to say that the 21st century would be the age of agriculture. He was right, as war, the effects of climate change, and population growth have made food issues a major global problem. As a result, the importance of agriculture is being reaffirmed in Japan as well. Not only in agricultural countries such as the EU, the United States, Canada, China, and Australia, but also in Japan recently, we have seen farmers speaking out as people working in the field.
In this context, expectations for organic farming seem to be rising. The former town of Fujisawa, which has about 400 hectares of nationally developed farmland, declared itself an organic village (abbreviation) in 2003, but this is not widely known. The current Organic Fertilizer Center Wakaba was established with the aim of playing a central role in this endeavor. Since then, large-scale organic farming of wheat and other crops has been carried out in Fujisawa, including at our company.

Anyway, this year, we had a lot of weddings and births within the company. It's something to be very happy about. If I remember correctly, there were 13 of them! It's also great for the Ark Group, which has about 200 employees!
This shows that we have a lot of young people. I also want to thank the other employees for their cooperation with maternity and childcare leave.

And now, we have certainly grown a year older, and another page in history is about to be turned.
I hope that the new year will be a year in which paths to resolving each of our problems will open up.
I cannot help but fervently hope that this will be a year in which children in every country and place on Earth are protected, do not go hungry, are given the chance to realize their dreams, and people's freedom to live is protected.

Shizu Hashimoto

<Ark Tategamori Prayer Space "Fantasy Square">