Going to the Countryside for the Second Time

On the one hand, more and more villages are becoming empty, and vast stretches of farmland are lying fallow. On the other hand, every city has an army of retirees, many of them in good health with plenty of free time. There are plenty who have nothing to do. Could renting out their city homes and buying or renting a house and a plot of land in the countryside, working with their own hands to provide for themselves, and enjoying the pleasures of rural life while increasing their income become a new kind of retirement? I hear that in rural Japan, most people working the land are over sixty. Young people certainly have more room to develop in the cities. But wouldn't retired people need exactly the opposite of what young people need?

Could Japan today be our future?