ISHIKAWA, May 12 — Rice planting started on May 11 at the Shiroyone Senmaida terraced paddies in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, hit by the Noto Peninsula earthquake on New Year’s Day.
Some 50 terraced paddy owners from the prefecture, as well as from the Kanto, Kansai and Tokai regions, took part in the planting on some 120 paddies out of the total of 1,004. Owners are the people who pay an annual fee to rent the paddies and cultivate them under a scheme designed to support areas suffering from aging and shortage of farmers.
The number of attendants at the event, organized by the Shiroyone Senmaida Landscape Conservation Council, and the planted area were roughly 10 percent of the average year, as the quake left cracks on most of the rice paddies.
They planted the Notohikari early variety to enable early harvesting so that more time can be given to repairing the terraces damaged by the quake.
Around 10 members of a group of local farmers working to preserve the terraces helped the paddy owners plant rice seedlings.
The group launched a crowdfunding campaign between February and April to cover the cost of repairs.
This year, they plan to end rice planting by the end of May and work on full-scale repair work from June in collaboration with local firms.
Sayu Yamato, 4, from Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, who took part in planting, said, “It was sticky. I enjoyed it.”
Tomokazu Shirao, 60, head of the group, said, “We didn’t think we could do it at first. We want to thank everyone. We hope to bring as many paddies as possible back into good condition.”
A girl plants rice seedlings for the first time along with her mother at the Shiroyone Senmaida rice terraces in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture.