Wearing a shirt and tie and cruising the streets of Sendai, Takao Hayakawa, a taxi driver from Osato in Miyagi Prefecture, does not look like a part-time farmer.
"I feel like I am a taxi driver rather than a farmer," the 48-year-old said.
He grows rice on 21 hectares of paddies that he took over from his parents. After graduating from high school, he worked for five years in a warehouse in Sendai before switching to a taxi company.
"If I were with an ordinary company, it would be very hard for me to get days off during the rice-planting and harvesting seasons. But it is convenient for me as a taxi driver to be away from work," he said.