During his first year in Brazil, Onoda bulldozed the land to make a pasture. He cut trees in 50 hectares of land per day. The fallen trees were pushed to the sides and then he cultivated the ground using tractors. He worked energetically and completed developing 250 hectares of land beforeSeptember, which was the start of the rainy season. Next, he cultivated dry rice to earn money before making the pasture land. After the rainy season, he harvested the dry rice and then sowed pasture seeds. The land was not fit for agriculture so ordinary pasture could not grow. According to Mr.Yoshio’s advice, he sowed special pasture seeds which came from Africa, it was a bit expensive, but it grew fast and made the land green. He then fenced the area—the total length of the fence was about 20 km so it cost a lot and took much time to finish it. He could not afford to sleep, so his resting time was about four hours per day.
As he developed the pasture, he purchased female cattle from neighboring stock farms little by little. Thankfully, Mr. Yoshio sold his 9 breeding cattle, including special ones which were registered by the Brazilian government at an exceptional price. In his first year he had 9 breeding cattle and 200 female cattle, and he could sell harvested rice so he was getting off to a good start.
Onoda had met a Japanese lady in Brazil. Earlier, he met her at his farewell party in Japan, where a Nakano Army Academy classmate introduced her to him. Onoda’s elder brother also had looked for a good woman who could speak the Portuguese language regardless of Onoda’s will, because in Brazil, a single person; especially an older one, had low social credibility. She came to South America for the cultural exchange event as a Japanese tea master, and then she visited Brazil again; she liked a strong man and from a chance meeting they started to go out. Four month after, he returned to Japan to file their marriage papers in Tokyo. He was so busy with his farming business that they had a wedding ceremony in 1976 at the Catholic Church in Sao Paulo. Onoda now had a life partner, so his elder brother and his wife returned to their home. It was when Onoda was 53 years old; however his wife, Machie was only 37 years old.
On the second year, Onoda continued to cut trees in the remaining jungle to purchase more land, because the Japanese International Cooperation Agency allowed immigrants who developed 80% of their land to purchase new land. A year ago, he purchased a bulldozer and in addition, he had to pay for the remaining balance for his land, so he had severe financial problems. Until he could sell his cattle, he could not earn money. He was about to run out of funds, so he changed business strategies and mainly worked with neighboring farms to operate bulldozers so he could earn money that year. As the cattle increased, he needed more money, but due to a chronic lack of funds, he needed to add flexibility to his business. His wife sold her properties to complete the payment for the bulldozer, so he was able to purchase additional cattle.
As the cattle number increased on his farm, Onoda had to make a special enclosed area where he could drive the cattle into. It was necessary for his stock farm business to separate cattle into groups such as the baby group, mother group, patient group, and pregnant group. The enclosure had the capability to separate 600 cattle. In this enclosure, they could pump milk, give medical treatment, vaccinate, and castrate cattle.
On the third year, Onoda had difficulty acquiring land from the Japanese International Cooperation Agency(JICA). They were selling the land to others due to the increase of immigration. Earlier, he had made a verbal agreement with the JICA manager, but unfortunately, this manager was transferred to another assignment. He visited their office many times to negotiate about it. Onoda was just a permanent residency foreigner so he had to follow their process. Fortunately, one of the Japanese Diet members came to Brazil by chance and negotiated with them to resolve the issue. After that, the agency filed the document for Onoda’s land acquisition to the Brazilian government, but, it took a long time to get the approval, but one and half years later, he was finally able to contract the purchase of the new land. At that time, he did not have enough funds so that he unwillingly sold 50 of his cattle to make money. He had a plan to borrow money from the Brazilian government with his stock farm as collateral, but due to unexpected incidents, lack of funds, shortage of labor, labor cases and bad weather, it was impossible to borrow money from the government. He had been surviving on his 3rd and 4th year of his stock farming business while renting his land to landless farmers.
In 1977, his mother Tamae might have been relieved because of Onoda’s marriage. She passed away at the age of 91 years old and at that time; Onoda was poor and had to work hard, so he did not have enough money to return home, so he prayed for his mother’s death from the opposite side of the world. He prayed that he would see her after death as promised.
The 1st cattle production started in 1977. There were a total number of 150 cattle, with 75 bulls and 75 cows which were born on his farm. The time span which a bull grew until it could be sold was 4 years and for a cow, it was 2 years, however the cows were needed as breeding cattle for the time being. So he earned money from pure farming five years after he started developing his land pasture.
Thanks to the help of many people, Onoda completed the development of his new pasture one year ahead of schedule, so he applied for more land to purchase from JICA to achieve the 1st goal of having 1,000 hectares of farm. However, the land acquisition law for foreigners in Brazil had been changed and he needed the approval from Brazil’s President. JICA did not cooperate with him to negotiate with the Brazilian government and refused his request. So Onoda sought the help of an alumnus from the Nakano Academy to help negotiate with JICA headquarters in Tokyo. They spent one year negotiating and finally resolved the issue. Onoda was able to enter an agreement contact for the new land acquisition in 1980 but an on-site JICA representative had made some cynical remarks to Onoda.
In the autumn of 1979, his father Tanejiro died at the age of 94. Onoda and his wife went back to Japan after one year because he was offered to appear at the TV program for the 70th Anniversary of Brazil’s Japanese Immigration. He also visited his mother’s grave along with his father. At that time, he said he would live to over 100 years old.
In that year also, Onoda served as the Chairman of the Japan Society for 4 terms in eight years. He was also engaged in the education related to Japanese language, Japanese culture tradition, and Japanese advanced technology for the second generation Japanese immigrants. The JICA assistance program in Brazil was completed that year so Onoda had to continue educating the second generation immigrants.
In 1980, street lights were finally provided allowing the area to have electricity. Before this, Onoda used an electric generator but it was only for home use. It was not enough for his business. Every night, he turned off the generator before sleeping. The Immigrants had twists and turns and finally the electric power was supplied in this area.
Soon after that, the former Major Taniguchi, a Nakano Army alumnus, his wife’s parents and his classmates came to Onoda’s house for sightseeing. They were concerned about Onoda’s family life in an unknown land so they were relieved at seeing his big farm and then appreciated his great effort in Brazil.
Ten years after he swore the success of “Onoda’s farm,” his farm grew into 1200 hectares, and the number of cattle grew to over 1800.
