Kaoru Inamoto (Inamoto Farm)

Producer: Kaoru Inamoto Production area: Yatsushiro City, Kumamoto Prefecture Main product: Rice, etc. Use of pesticides: None Use of fertilizers: None

Fighting weeds

The first reason I started growing rice naturally was when I was attending the Kumamoto Prefectural Fruit Tree Horticulture Training School after graduating from high school, and one of my teachers went on a tangent about brown rice and white rice (the ``ko'' in the ``ko'' part of ``rice'' refers to the bran that comes with brown rice, and the ``white'' in the ``rice'' part refers to lees, and everyone who eats white rice is also eating lees).

This led me to start growing fertilizer-free and pesticide-free rice at the age of 24, starting with 10 ares to eat at home, and then over the next 5 to 10 years, I increased the area to 50 and then 100 ares. The hardest part of my job was weeding. I had to push a farm tool called a gandume three times, and by the end, I was so exhausted that my mother, my wife, and I were weeding together.

The most difficult time was in the fifth year. After my wife and I had finished removing the bark weeds that had grown all over our 30-acre rice paddy, the autumn rice planthopper, a major enemy of rice, destroyed all of the rice on the 30-acre paddy. I couldn't even shed a tear at that moment.

The average yield at that time was 5 to 5.5 bales, much less than today (now it averages 6.5 to 7 bales, 80 to 90% of conventional farming methods), but since then the area has gradually increased to 150 to 200 a, and now stands at 710 a. Then, from the 5th to 15th year, newly started paddy fields suffered from pests and disease due to the effects of remaining fertilizer, and yields decreased, so it was difficult to get a decent harvest. However, now there are no pests and disease and the yield has stabilized.

The biggest factor in the stable yield was actually the giant snail, which appeared 24 years ago. I was the first person in Japan to discover the weed-killing effect of the giant snail. Until then, I had really struggled with weeds, but now they no longer grow, as if by magic. What I do is to make the rice field as level as possible, and to carefully manage the water after planting for 2-3 weeks, using just enough water, and repeating the process of filling and draining the water. If I make even the slightest mistake, the giant snail will eat the rice or the weeds will grow. I have to be careful about this for about 2 weeks every year while planting rice. There is still some damage to the rice, but the amount of weeding has been reduced to about 30 to 50 ares (5-10% of the total area).

The second factor, especially for newly cultivated rice paddies, is to cultivate using semi-no-tillage cultivation with a tractor plowing depth of less than 5cm. Shallow plowing is a technique that reduces the effects of pests by cultivating the rice without touching the fertilizer-toxic layer at a depth of about 10cm to 20cm. We will continue with semi-no-tillage cultivation for more than 7 to 8 years, and then gradually plow deeper while assessing the yield, aiming for the average yield of 8 bales per 10 ares compared to conventional cultivation, and then setting a goal of surpassing that.

Prohibited camellia oil residue

In the surrounding rice fields, camellia oil residue, which is generally prohibited for use (when used in rice fields, it is prohibited because it contains a highly toxic substance called saponin, which kills snails and causes problems when it flows into rivers and the sea), is used in nearly 100% of the rice fields. In my rice fields, I do not use any fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, or camellia oil residue. The giant snails are there and help me weed. Also, the Japanese snails, which used to be abundant in the rice fields, have begun to coexist with the giant snails. I don't know which is more prevalent in the rice fields for a long time. Of course, I have also seen a wide variety of organisms, including microorganisms and insects, reviving in these rice fields. As the environment of these rice fields improves, the water that flows through the rice fields becomes cleaner and flows from the rivers to the sea. I believe that by engaging in natural farming, the global environment will really improve in an instant. I would like to ask consumers to speak out so that more producers and rice fields will engage in natural farming. Thank you.

Akita Komachi, 16 years of self-seeding

I have been growing Akitakomachi rice for 16 years, using my own seeds. I started growing it because Kumamoto's recommended variety, Hinohikari, was susceptible to heat damage and was prone to cloudy symptoms. With the recent warming of the weather, I have been able to overcome the heat damage with this Akitakomachi rice. By continuing with natural cultivation, it seems that Hinohikari, Akitakomachi, and Koshihikari are all almost comparable in taste, with a refreshing flavor. I feel that a comparative taste study is necessary from now on.

Understanding of family and community

I am grateful and happy that the whole family is involved in this. I am also glad that my third son has taken over as my successor. I think that reaching out to the local community is the most important thing to me, so I try to talk about it in various situations. I think that the best way to get people to understand natural farming is to not criticize those around you and to get along with them.

As farmers, our greatest joy is when people eat the food we have grown and say it is "delicious" or "great," which motivates us to produce more. I hope that we can all work together to increase the number of organic farming farmers, restore the global environment that has been destroyed over the past 50 to 100 years, and make the era of our children and grandchildren a wonderful one.

(Kaoru Inamoto)

Interview with Kaoru Inamoto

The opportunity to start natural farming

About Inamoto No. 1


Inamoto's rice decay experiment

Message to customers