Masaaki Suhama, 24, a university senior, is running a 30-hectare ranch on a mountain in Ota, Shimane Prefecture, where there is no barn and where 27 cattle graze except at milking time in the morning and evening.

Once, while helping his parents in milk wholesaling, a senior citizen told him: "The taste of milk has changed. I used to drink it but can no longer do so." The remark prompted Suhama to become interested in what he calls "old-style milk."

He visited dairy farms and one day happened to see cattle out grazing instead of being confined to cowsheds. "It was a dairy where nature and domestic animals coexist," he said.