I am a frog living in rice paddies. I enjoy looking at young rice seedlings grow bigger every day. At one time, all of us amphibians got into a terrible panic because of a fatal infectious disease called chytridiomycosis, but we somehow managed to survive. Now it is becoming clear that the disease is not as horrifying to Japanese frogs as some thought. Whew! Thank goodness.
Still, my fellows are feeling restless. All of us creatures living in rice paddies, including rice fish, pond snails and diving beetles, are worried because we see less and less human beings in the paddies.
You may think that we can feel more at ease if there are less people around. It is true that when we are drowsing and human beings suddenly walk into the fields, we are disturbed and move away in a flurry.
Yet we feel anxious and uncomfortable living in rice fields if there is no one who watches over us. The best place for us to live in is a rice field filled with various kinds of species.
Human beings call it “biodiversity.” I forgot exactly when, but do you remember the announcement of a survey which said that nearly 5,700 kinds of animals and plants exist in rice fields? I know this doesn’t really mean such a variation of life forms can be found in one rice paddy, but it is obviously much more fun to live in a rice paddy bustling with small animals.
There are harmful insects which are treated as a nuisance by farmers, there are beneficial insects and there are creatures which do not fit into either of the types. However, none of them can live by itself. They live under the harsh reality of nature as those who eat and those who are eaten, but that is also the way how species are preserved. It is difficult to preserve only the beneficial species because species depend on each other. That is why ecological balance and biodiversity are so crucial.
In summer, many children will have an opportunity to participate in events to find out what kind of species live in rice fields as part of education on food and agriculture. It is obvious which rice paddies they would prefer, the ones with only a few kinds of species or the ones with dozens of species.
Children feel much more deeply impressed than adults when they learn or experience something. If they learn that there are many different kinds of frogs, and see them eat insects or being eaten by snakes, they will become even more interested in rice fields and rice farming. Just participating in events and not seeing anything will have little educational effect.
I know farmers are busy completing as many as 88 steps to produce a harvest of rice as the saying goes, but I feel they are taking less time to watch us compared with farmers in the old days. If you are a farmer, please pay more attention to how creatures and plants interact with and affect each other, not only when you are working in the rice fields, but when you are in any environment rich in biodiversity. And please make use of what you have learned through observing us when you teach children about food and agriculture.
(June 23, 2013)