Eating Japanese rice also contributes to Japan’s environmental conservation and biodiversity.
If people eat rice, farmers can maintain the ricefields, and the ricefields create jobs in their communities.
Eating Japanese rice also contributes to Japan’s environmental conservation and biodiversity.
If people eat rice, farmers can maintain the ricefields, and the ricefields create jobs in their communities.
Ricefields not only grow rice but are also home to many living things. Three ears of rice can produce a little more than one Omusubi of Gonbei. So eating one Omusubi will help protect the habitat of 35 tadpoles. The ricefields also support fish and fireflies.
We go to great lengths to grow rice using “environmentally friendly agriculture” that minimizes the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Ricefields exist in connection with the local ecosystem and are where the mountains and clouds are reflected on the water, the lush seedlings swaying in the wind, and the bowing golden ears of rice await harvest. Both creatures and scenery are “agricultural products.”
Ricefields contribute to our lives in ways that we are not aware of. They are a “natural dam” that temporarily stores rainwater, and prevents floods and landslides. Rainwater can slowly permeate underground, and the soil works as a filter to clean the water. Ricefields protect us from natural disasters by producing clean groundwater; they also help reduce high temperatures when the water evaporates from the surface of the fields.
So, eating Omusubi will satisfy your hunger while benefiting the Earth.
