K Kawakami - Kawakami Koi Farm

Currently, Katsuyuki, the third generation, and Takashi and Koji, the fourth generations, are involved in the production of Nishikigoi and are producing up to twenty varieties of Koi including Gonsanke, Utsurimono, and Koromo.

Kawakami Koi Farm was founded by Jirosuke, my grandfather and the first generation of the farm, early in Showa (1926-1989) as a Nishikigoi wholesaler. At the time, Nishikigoi were put into food tray carriers and transported to prefectures such as Toyama and Gifu, which took one to two days. Around 1955, my father Masaru started to focus more energy on Nishikigoi distribution, while I, upon graduating from high school in 1965, began to get involved in our family Nishikigoi business. We took advantage of being closely located to Ojiya Station, stocking Koi from the whole area of Yamakoshi and shipping them out to nationwide Nishikigoi dealers upon request. We were a Nishikigoi wholesaler at the time, but later on in 1975, we started Nishikigoi production in full swing. We always have produced many varieties just like we do now.

As well as producing numerous varieties of Koi as always, we had been increasing the quantity of production lately: approximately 100,000 tosai and 20,000 nisai. However, we suffered damages from the 2004 Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake such as losing our oyagoi and field ponds, so we had to decrease production. But we have now restocked oyagoi, and approximately sixty percent of the field ponds are restored; I can say that about half of our business is back to normal.