Of the 270 small islands that are dotted across Matsushima Bay, the four largest are known collectively as the ‘Urato Islands’ (Katsurashima, Sabusawa, Nonoshima and Hojima).
Sabusawa Island in particular once prospered as a lively port of the Date clan, but these days functions predominantly as a hub of oyster cultivation, including seed-oysters which are then shipped across Japan (and even overseas) to be cultivated into adult oysters.
The Urato Islands/Matsushima Bay oyster farms are basically the birthplace of much of Japan’s oyster produce.
But huge, delicious oysters are not all that is produced on Sabusawa.
The island is also the location of the only sake-rice produced in Shiogama City.
Urakasumi Brewery prides itself on the regionality of its premium sake, with around 90% of the sake rice used in brewing produced locally in Miyagi. However, in an effort to produce an even more deeply ‘local’ sake, Urakasumi commissioned the production of the ‘sasanishiki’ variety of sake rice to be grown on Sabusawa Island. Sabusawa Island was chosen not only due to its wide open space, but for its pristine environment – the perfect conditions for growing high quality sake rice.
However, with no irrigation infrastructure on the island it is no easy task for the farmers who must rely on rain water to grow their crop.
The island used to be home to over 30 hectares of rice-farming land but, mostly due to the dwindling population, this area is growing smaller and smaller with only two rice farmers currently active on the entire island.
