An old farmer who has refused to give up to developers continues to raise vegetables on his land, which is now smack dab in the center of an airport.

It might be unsettling to see developers creep in on open ground, and Takao Shito, 73, has had to confront that fact.

His family has spent years farming farmland around Tokyo, but the surrounding property has become more famous as the location of Narita Airport, one of two international airports servicing the Greater Tokyo Area.

The airport opened in the 1960s and processed around 15.42 million terminal passengers last year.

However, many of those were presumably unaware that the airport’s construction was faced with opposition by farmers who were being driven off their property.

Despite the fact that two runways now encircle his land, Shito is defiant and has continued to live there for decades.

Shito’s property is vulnerable to engine noise and the odor of jet fuel exhaust, far from the clear, fresh air one might expect to find on farms.

Shito, on the other hand, refuses to give in.

“It’s my life,” he told CBS News. “I have no intention of ever leaving.”

Shito’s family has been connected to the property for almost a century, but despite their eagerness to purchase it after WWII, they were unable to do so owing to military duty.

They have instead rented the land for centuries.

The majority of Shito’s land has been deemed government property, while he does possess a tiny section of the area that developers are seeking for the airport.

According to William Andrews, a writer and translator in Tokyo, the Narita airport protest is currently the longest-running social movement in Japanese history.

However, he stated that the conflict is “not just about an airport.”

“This case of Mr. Shito has come to encapsulate the final gasps of the movement—the very last concrete struggle,” he went on to say.

Protests that have turned violent over the years have resulted in the deaths of several demonstrators, and riot police battled with Shito and his followers once again in February.

Officers erected high barriers to separate Shito’s house and shed from his crops, but the 73-year-old stayed steadfast.

“The best outcome would be for the airport to shut down,” he told reporters. “But what’s important is to keep farming my ancestral land.”