NATURAL FARM SHIZEN

Natural Farm Shizen is a living place, shaped slowly through practice, relationships and time.

Rooted in natural farming, Shizen is not designed as a model to replicate, but as a space to observe, experiment and learn directly from the land. The farm evolves through seasons, listening to soil, plants, water and climate, allowing life to organize itself with minimal interference.

Shizen is also a place of encounter. Throughout the year, the farm opens its doors for open days, shared moments where people can visit, walk the land, ask questions, exchange experiences and simply be present together. These days are not events to consume, but invitations to slow down, reconnect and feel how a place breathes.

The farm hosts volunteers from all over the world, who come to live and work at Shizen for periods of time, sharing daily life, practical activities and meals. Volunteering here is not about productivity, but about participation — learning through doing, observing natural processes, and rediscovering a simple rhythm of life rooted in care and presence.

Alongside volunteers, Shizen also hosts projects dedicated to young people, offering them a space where they can step out of pressure, reconnect with nature and experience responsibility, trust and community through practical engagement with the land. These experiences are grounded in inclusion, learning by doing and personal growth, always respecting individual rhythms and sensitivities.

Activities at Natural Farm Shizen include natural farming practices, seed saving, reforestation actions, maintenance of living spaces, shared cooking, and moments of collective reflection. Among these, Seedball gatherings and festivals hold a special place — collective moments where people come together to prepare seed balls and spread them in degraded or neglected areas, combining ecological restoration with celebration, creativity and shared intention.

There is no fixed program: the work follows the needs of the land and the people present, adapting naturally to what each moment asks.

More than a farm, Shizen is a process — a place where agriculture, education and human presence meet without rigid structures. It is a space that invites participation rather than instruction, relationship rather than control, and learning that emerges from direct experience.

Natural Farm Shizen continues to grow as a living organism, nourished by the land itself and by the many people who pass through it, leave traces, and carry something of it forward into their own paths.