C−5. The Beginning of Rice-Duck Farming in Tamatsukuri

July, 2006
H. Konagaya

I’d like to talk about the beginning of the Rice-Duck farming in Tamatsukuri. 15 years ago (1991), I became a part-time farmer after marriage. And I began organic farming even my father-in-law was disagreeing, because he believed that it was impossible to harvest rice without using chemicals. At that time, I had used to spend all weekend time in my rice field for weeding. Even my rice fields were not so big because they were just for my family, but it was fairly troubled by weeding out.

Above all, Eleocharis Kuroguwai gave damage absolute. Morphology of Kuroguwai is explained by long, straight, straw shape body. And it matures just after rice heading, and it causes lodging with rice. In the lodging part, rice can not mature and it produces only immature grain. Kuroguwai reproduces from small tuber in the soil. Therefore, even if you supply some herbicides, it is very difficult to control it. Please imagine, you are in the field now, under the sun in summer, sweating all over. You are looking for the Kuroguwai tubers with bending form. Sometimes the tip of rice leaf picks in your eyes. So you can say it is really hard work. But now we are free from this troublesome work.

My turning point had come soon. One day of 13 years ago(in 1993), I read about rice-duck farming in The Japan Agriculture News, “Nihon Nougyo Shinbun” in Japanese. As soon as I read the column, I thought that I would acquire the further information, and I called Mr. Furuno. He told me the other side of telephone as follows;

“We will have farmers meeting in Hiroshima, please participate this forum.”

According to him, almost 500 farmers gather from different departments of Japan and discuss all problems of rice-duck farming. When I heard that information, I was so excited.

And the real meeting was more exciting than my imagination. All participants had the eyes shining. And we never slept whole night. After finishing night party, we returned to our dormitory, but we continued to discuss still the sun rises in east sky. We had so many subjects to discuss; about rice cultivation technologies, raising duckling, relation with parents, cooperation with local administrators, safety foods, and situations of foreign countries and so on. The time was allocated for only two days. That’s the why we gave our whole time to discuss.

After returning from the forum, I decided to introduce it in my field. But I did not have perfect confidence. Especially I work in a company, so I could not come to the field during the daytime. Therefore I tried to find my partner. In fact I decided my best partner in my mind. He has higher technique of rice cultivation in my area. His name is Hirohide Nohara. So my duty was only to gain his agreement with my plan. Every night I met him to discuss what was the rice-duck farming, how to practice, what were advantages against the normal rice cultivation.3 months had past, at least my memorial day had come. I was very happy. And we named our group, “Tamatsukuri Aigamo Farmers (TAF)”. Our new history was started from that time.

He prepared 0.5 hectares of rice field located aside of national road. He said that the location was very good for advertising, and sure enough it was. Some consumers and farmers passing the road asked him about our activities. Our textbook was “Aigamo Banzai published from Nobunkyo, 1992” (English title is The Power of Duck published by Tagari, 2001) written by Mr. Furuno and Video “The Practice of Rice-Duck Farming published by Nobunkyo, 1993” was used. At first, we did simulation of rice-duck farming in the head. I kept the textbook in my car for the purpose of easy conformation anytime anywhere. Mr. Nohara looked like memorized all contents of “Aigamo Banzai”, so if I said;
“Rice will hurt if some duck are put into a rice field.”
“It was written on suck a page of the book.”
He used to answer immediately. And sometimes he said me like this;
“Did you watch perfectly the Video?”

We noted every day, everything notable matters in the field. For example, duck behaviours, rice growth, interest of consumers and so on, everything which observed in rice-duck field. Especially, this note was useful of considering about the things which were not written in the textbook or not same as it.

In the same period, one farmer whose name is Mitsuru Tamiya, joined our group. He practiced organic farming with carp before, but the carp stay only deep water place, so weeding effect was not satisfactory for him. Then he expected duck effect. He had enough reason to practice organic farming. He was known as one of advanced farmers in our area. He cultivated higher quality of melon in greenhouse. The extension administrators advised him to apply many amounts of agro-chemicals, so he applied them without considering deeply. At last, he lost his health. The disease name was allergy of pollen. And he understood about risk of pesticide. When spring came, he used to have a runny nose and wet eyes, in autumn also. Miraculously his pollen allergy was recovered after 10 years practice of rice-duck farming. He is happy now. And he wants to send his rice more consumers as well as possible, so he expanded his rice-duck field to 3 hectares.

This is the beginning of TAF. Although there are also a case which starts rice-duck farming in response to backup of administration or an agricultural cooperative, our group starts just from one idea, and gathered with the persons who are necessary of the duck power. So I think that accumulation of various know-how was done. And we became thick rope now.