JAPAN: Sacred rice farms rotting from inside Shuichi Yokota may be the future of Japans struggling rice industry. The 38-year-old is about half the age of most growers and he relies on cutting-edge technology to cultivate vast paddy fields that eclipse the bulk of the countrys rice plots. And Yokota doesnt fear opening up to foreign competition -- taboo in a place where rice is a sacred cow that is protected by subsidies and massive tariffs. His farm in Ryugasaki, a community north of Tokyo, has ballooned more than five-fold in 15 years into an operation spanning 275 acres -- almost 30 times bigger than the tiny commercial rice fields commonly found in the area. While many of Japans farmers get by with centuries-old farming methods, Yokota and his colleagues share workload information and data such as temperature and water levels -- monitored by sensors installed in each paddy -- on their smartphones. Prices have tumbled as Japans rice consumption has halved in 50 years, and there are fears the sector is rotting from the inside despite decades-old protectionism.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 15:59:45 +0000
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