Tokyo Narita International Airport is known as one of the largest and busiest airports in the world. It is home to airlines from almost every country, serves millions of people every year, and has tons of shops and restaurants. But one thing you wouldn't expect inside of an airport, is a farm!
Many airports have unique features to help them stand apart from all of the others. Singapore Changi airport has a slide down to a terminal and an indoor jungle, Denver International has an ice rink, and Las Vegas's airport has slot machines! But Tokyo Narita's farm isn't just another airport amenity, it is a real fully functional farm. The farm today is owned and operated by Takao Shito, who is the son of Toichi Shito, who was the original owner back in the 60's.
The area the farm sits on, has been farmland since around the year 700. The emperor at the time decided to dedicate the land to farming, and it had been in the possession of the royal family ever since. But that changed after Japan's defeat in World War II, as part of the peace treaty signed between the US and Japan, the royal family took a step back from public life and sold off most of the farmland to poor farmers.
After the war, Japan started to rapidly develop its economy, and by the 60's it was clear that Tokyo's Haneda airport wasn't big enough anymore. Haneda airport was right in the middle of the city and bordered the ocean, so expanding it wasn't really an option.
The government came up with the plan to build a new airport about an hour away from the Tokyo! It turned out that the new airport would cover a couple of farms in the area, and the locals weren't happy about that to say the least. The farmers fought back, and they fought back hard!
The small group of farmers that had started the protest, were soon joined by opposition socialist parties. They believed that the current government was too friendly to the American military and was starting to become too capitalistic, and saw this protest as a good opportunity to get their name out and show they weren't just all talk.
Things quickly got out of hand, with the protest resembling more of a riot than a peaceful opposition at times. They built barricades, made makeshift weapons, started fires, and later even constructed large metal towers, to prevent incoming aircraft from landing!
The protest got so bad, that the government eventually decided to change their tactics. They acquired what was left over of the emperor's land, but this still wasn't quite big enough. Japan has very strong property rights laws, and therefore couldn't force the farmers to sell their land, but eventually they were able to convince enough of them to change their minds.
Except for Toichi Shito, he and his son were offered $1.7 million for their land, but still didn't sell! This meant that the airport had to be built around their farm, and the construction workers had to dig tunnels under their property to connect different parts of the airport.
In the end the airport was delayed by a couple of years, and the government went way over budget on the project. Part of the reason for this was the continued opposition of the protesters, which were still unwilling to give up. At one point protesters were even throwing raw sewage at the riot police!
But when they were finally finished with the airport, they faced yet another problem. Because Narita was an hour away from Tokyo, many airlines didn't even want to switch there, so the government eventually decided to force them to move by making Haneda Tokyo's domestic airport and Narita the international airport.
Toichi Shito kept working on his farm until 1999, when he passed away, and afterwards his son Takao took over the farm. Even though the protests were decades ago by now, Takao still gets help on his farm from the anti airport movement, which for some reason still exists! And passengers arriving to Narita can still see one of the old protest banners, so next time you're flying to Tokyo keep an eye out for it!
If I was him, I would have taken the $1.7 million and retired.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this story!
Hey this was cool story! Thanks for the good read!
Thanks! 🙂 I first learned about this when I went on a trip to japan, and my plane taxied past the giant sign that says: Down With Narita Airport. I was like, what's this all about?! Considering how nice and polite the Japanese are, this is a pretty crazy story!