The farmers living in the mountains survived on a diet of rice and carp. The carps were kept in ponds close to their houses. When red mutants were found these were not consumed but kept for their ornamental value. This is how the koi industry in this area begun.

In a small area of about 60 square kilometres hundreds of farms can be found. Often the farms are door to door in villages with appealing names like: Iwagami, Yamakoshi, Uragara, Koguriyama. All of this in maybe 15 minutes drive from the centre of Ojiya-City. Here you will find hundreds of indoor koihouses owned by small and big breeders. You could easily pass days by walking from one to the other, many of them are indeed on walking distance of another. No square meter is left unused, either for rice paddies, but foremost used for building koi houses, on spots sometimes you wouldn't have dreamt of, some big and loaded with thousands of koi and some small just hiding a few koi you can't enter them but just looking from outside into it.

Although we are visiting these breeders on a day to day basis for many years there are still capable to surprise us. This is for sure one of the great advantages of travelling to and buying from this area, it will always enables you to bring your shop, business or hobby to a higher level.

The breeders are each others competitors but ever so often they help each other. Exchanging knowledge, sharing parent koi, buying and selling ‘tate-goi’ for outsiders or western business people it’s often a way of living and cooperation together which is hard to understand. Why sharing your knowledge to your colleagues in the industry? Maybe the answer lies in the same thing: Their true, genuine passion for Koi.

All this with a little help of the natural conditions in this area, excellent water that comes from wells together with the mineral content of the mud in the ponds. It’s for the same reason the best rice in Japan comes from Niigata. Prices will go up to app. €. 80,= per kilo of this rice!

But at the end of the day maybe the fact that over 90% of our customers visiting Japan will return for another trip year after year is the best testimony we can ask for.