Type Of Rice Farming

Astronaut turned organic farmer reflects on modern Japan and evacuation from ...

The first Japanese astronaut to travel to space in 1990 on the then-Soviet spacecraft Soyuz, journalist Toyohiro Akiyama, had since moved to the Fukushima Prefecture city of Tamura to become an organic farmer.

Since the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, however, the 69-year-old Akiyama has been staying in the Gunma Prefectural city of Fujioka, where he greeted me at the bus station with a deep tan, wearing rubber boots. He seemed to be perfectly comfortable in the role of farmer, both inside and out.

I was led down the Kanna River that borders Gunma and Saitama prefectures to a 600-square-meter rice paddy that Akiyama had rented from an acquaintance of his who also engages in organic farming. Akiyama planted rice seedlings here in early July.

"In Fukushima, I used to plant rice around May 20 or so, but it took a long time before water temperatures went up," Akiyama says. "I'm surprised by how quickly the rice grows here."

In a greenhouse, Akiyama grows vegetables such as asparagus, kabocha squash and peppers. Akiyama seems to be settled into his new home, now that he's finally "returned" to his life as a farmer.

On Dec. 2, 1990, Akiyama, then a reporter at Tokyo Broadcasting System Television (TBS), boarded the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz at the Kazakh launching facility Baikonur Cosmodrome. His first words from space were: "Are we live?" in response to a live call from a Tokyo television studio.

He later went on to head the broadcaster's international news center but quit the company in 1995, claiming that he couldn't tolerate being in a management position away from the action on the ground. Moving to the town of Takine -- now merged with neighboring towns to become the city of Tamura -- in Fukushima Prefecture, he began organic farming with the aim of becoming self-sufficient. He continues to write, however, including a series in the monthly magazine Shizen to Ningen (Nature and human beings) about life in farming.

Akiyama bought a 10,000-square-meter plot of land at an elevation of 600 meters above sea level in the Abukuma Mountains. He began growing shiitake mushrooms, rice and vegetables. This year -- what would've been his 16th year farming in Fukushima -- he had planned to keep bees and try his hand at becoming self-sufficient in honey. Then the Great East Japan Earthquake struck.

"Since it had been 40 years since operations began at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, I'd guessed that its decommissioning process would begin right about this year," Akiyama says. "I now know what an ill-advised assumption that had been.

Farming WIN - Win!

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Because I’m sure you only forage for naturally-occurring vegetation to get your daily food. Even if you come back with a statement like “But I grow all my own organic nuts and berries in my backyard!, those are plants that wouldn’t have been there if you hadn’t put them there, and I’m sure you weed and water them, thus disrupting the “harmony” that would have existed without your interference. If you eat food that wasn’t gleaned from the forest, shut up.

Nope – even if Daniel only ate stuff gleaned from the forest, he would still be changing the “harmony” cuz those seeds would have led to more forest.

Unless Nature was super-crazy smart and MADE Daniel to be part of Nature.

I think Daniel was maybe commenting on his ability to shape himself to what he wanted to be. Yay self-determination. You GO, man!

Women in rice farming, proceedings of a conference on women in rice farming systems, the International Rice Research Institute, P.O. Box 933, Manila, Philippines, 26-30 September 1983

Foods & nutrition encyclopedia

Rice farming systems, new directions : proceedings of an international symposium 31 January-3 February 1987, Rice Research and Training Center, Sakha, Egypt

Comparative farming systems

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