Nanmoku, Japan – Like all bakers, their day starts before dawn.
Hours later, as the mid-afternoon light streams through the windows of their kitchen, Masayuki Kaneta, 85, and his son, Shigeuki, are still at work, rolling out long strings of barley and brown sugar dough that will be chopped, baked and bagged to produce one of their signature confections.
Representing the third and fourth generations, the Kaneta family can trace their history in the village of Nanmoku back 140 years.
Once a thriving community in the mountainous interior of Japan’s main Honshu island, about 100km (62 miles) west of Tokyo, the last few decades have seen the community go through a rapid decline.
“There used to be about 40 shops within 150 metres (492 ft) of here,” Masayuki told Al Jazeera with sadness. “Now, there are only two confectionary shops, a restaurant and a taxi service.”
Sure enough, their front door onto what was once the bustling high street is one of only a few draped with the traditional “noren” curtains that indicate a business.
Along the street, many buildings sit disused and boarded up. Similarly, in the sprawling village extending up the hillsides of this verdant valley, many houses lie abandoned.
In Japanese, such dwellings are called “akiya” – houses that are no longer lived in.
There are an estimated 9 million “akiya” nationwide, in a country that is rapidly ageing and which has seen a steady migration of younger people leaving the countryside for the big cities.
It is a population crisis that Japan has been grappling with for the best part of a generation, and it is no more evident than in Nanmoku, where 67 percent of the population are now aged over 65, making it the village with the oldest population in the country.
It is one of 20 communities in Gunma Prefecture that experts say could disappear by 2050.
Half an hour’s drive through winding mountainous roads and tunnels, the neighbouring town of Kanna is suffering the same decline but its future has been given a boost, ironically, by a discovery from its prehistoric past.
In the mid-1980s, the chance discovery of a dinosaur footprint unearthed a rich source of fossils from the Cretaceous Period, which the local government has developed into a tourist attraction with an interactive visitor centre, complete with animated models and life-sized dinosaur skeletons.
“When it’s busy, we have over 1,000 visitors a day,” Yuuya Mogi, the centre’s manager, told Al Jazeera, adding that their busiest time of year is during Japan’s spring Golden Week holiday.
“Many families visit us and they go to nearby places like our town’s camping ground and our beautiful river for recreational activities,” he added proudly, crediting the centre with revitalising his town.
Back in Nanmoku, the few new buildings that exist are homes built by the village itself, offering subsidised rents for any newcomers. Yuuta Sato is one such welcome arrival, bringing with him his young family to live and work remotely online, while also running community projects to help the village’s elderly residents.
His organisation runs a meal delivery service for people who are housebound, while also operating a community centre which offers services such as helping the elderly with mobility issues.
Sato maintains a positive attitude but he is also realistic about what he and other younger residents can achieve.
“I think it’s presumptuous to say we’re reviving the village or breathing new life into it,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Instead, we can aim to bring a new breeze, at least.”
With Nanmoku’s continuing decline, there seems to be a fatalistic acceptance that the village and other communities in Gunma may have to merge, be absorbed by more viable neighbours or accept that its time has come to an end.
“This village is known as the most likely to disappear,” Sato said, “but we must consider whether disappearing is inherently bad. To create something new, sometimes a reset might be necessary.”
Back at the Kaneta family’s bakery, the work of father and son is interrupted occasionally by the few customers who stop to buy something from the neatly stocked display cabinets in the front of the shop.
Masayuki said that a lot of the passing trade now comes from people from neighbouring communities, explaining that many of the village’s residents are unable to go out and shop often as they are too old to drive.
Finishing another batch of cookies, his son, Shigeyuki, is philosophical about the future.
“I hope it becomes a lively place again, where people come and go,” he said. “More houses lit up at night. I would like to see that.”
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