Interviews

1. Going to Brazil to escape debt (Japanese)

2. Early life in Brazil (Japanese)

3. Learning skills by watching others work (Japanese)

4. Repaying Brazil by educating the technicians (Japanese)

5. Delivering know-how to the next generation (Japanese)

Nishimura,Shunji

(1911-2010) Founder of JACTO group

Repaying Brazil by educating the technicians (Japanese)

(Japanese) The reason why our company (JACTO Group) got big, why we were able to make money, was thanks to the farmers. So, appropriately, we knew part of the profits must be returned to the farmers. We thought there shouldn’t be any land that goes to waste, so we should try to re-fertilize it for them. But as we were thinking about how to re-fertilize the land, we realized that the reason why the farmers were poor wasn’t necessarily because of the land; the land itself is good. There is plenty of rainfall, the weather is pretty good… What was missing was the proper skill. There are technical skills, agricultural skills that I assume are difficult to learn, and there was nobody that had or was able to utilize these skills. There were no técnicos (technicians). There were several agrônomos (agriculturalists), but no técnicos. So I thought the best way to give back to the farmers was to send some técnicos back to the countryside. So I told my students to all go back to their homes, to the farms. Don’t stay in the city. So most of them ended up going back to the countryside.

agriculture Brazil business economics farming management

Date:

Location: Brazil

Contributed by: Caminho da memória - 遥かなるみちのり. São Paulo, Brazil: Comissão de Elaboração da História dos 80 Anos de Imigração Japonesa no Brasil, 1998. VHS.

Interviewee Bio

In light of the grave economic situation in Japan at the time, in 1932 at the age of 21, Shunji Nishimura decided to migrate to Brazil in search of new opportunities. During his early days in Brazil, he made use of his inherent toughness by working on farmlands. After saving up enough money to attend school for a year, he moved to São Paulo city. After moving around from factory to factory, he eventually settled in Pompéia.

Mr. Nishimura has challenged and experienced several different jobs on his way to making a living. After gaining a special license for farming equipment manufacturing, he founded the JACTO Group. Most farming equipment at the time were imported from abroad, but with a vision to provide higher quality domestic equipment, he poured in much effort into research and development of farming equipment. He thanks the Brazilian community for the success of the JACTO Group, and as a way of giving back to the community, he established a technical school for aspiring equipment technicians. Citing both the improvement of new farming tools and the education of able technicians as the cornerstones of the country’s development, he has dedicated much effort towards the growth of agricultural technicians. (June 22, 2007)