🐐 At a stormwater pond in central Japan, nine new workers clocked in for their first day this month. They take no coffee breaks, they file no timesheets, and they are paid entirely in grass. Meet Yokkaichi City's newest grounds crew: a small herd of very hungry goats.

Nine recruits report for duty

On June 8, nine goats were let loose into a rainwater retention pond in the Yamanoisshiki district of Yokkaichi, a city in Mie Prefecture. According to local reporting, the moment they touched grass they got straight to work, heads down and munching with what one account described as single-minded focus.

It is the first time Yokkaichi has handed grass-cutting duty to goats. The herd came from Meimei Farm in Uda, Nara Prefecture, and they have been given a patch of about 4,700 square meters to clear, roughly eighteen doubles tennis courts. The city even built them a small shelter to wait out wind and rain. Their contract runs through December, keeping the weeds down so the pond can keep doing its real job of storing and draining stormwater.

Cheaper than a mower, with nothing to haul away

The reason the city gave for bringing in goats was the environment. The savings were a bonus. Yokkaichi had been spending about ¥800,000 (around $5,000) a year to cut the grass by hand; with the goats, that drops to about ¥500,000 ($3,100), a saving of roughly ¥300,000, or $1,900.

Part of the appeal is that there is nothing to haul away. A mower leaves piles of clippings that someone has to gather and dispose of. A goat just digests them. According to Meimei Farm's representative, Shuji Uehira, a single goat puts away the equivalent of two 90-liter bags of grass a day. And here is the detail that tends to win people over: while the goats are on a grass diet, he says, their droppings barely smell.

Japan's quiet goat comeback

Yokkaichi is part of a small but growing trend. Across the country, goats have been quietly recruited to graze solar farms, abandoned rice fields, and riverbanks, anywhere the grass grows faster than the budget allows. In the 1950s, more than 300,000 goats lived in Japan; today the number is closer to 20,000. As a low-carbon alternative to gas-powered mowers, they are finding new work.

The city says it will review how the experiment goes and consider sending goats to other sites. For now, nine of them have a pond to themselves, a shelter for the rain, and a field that lasts until winter.

In Japan, the lawn crew sometimes has four legs and a weakness for weeds. Has your town ever put animals on the payroll?

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