WA growers enjoy sights at Japanese rice farm during CBH study tour

After days of watching farmland go by from the bus window, WA growers finally had the chance to step foot on a rice farm during the last leg of the 2024 CBH Grower Study tour. The rice farm, which the tour group visited on September 17, is in Ashikaga, a quiet little city just over 100km north of Tokyo. While there, growers took in the beautiful scenery of lush, green rice fields and the distant backdrop of mountains surrounding the area. Many enjoyed seeing a farm so different to their own, large-scale operations back in WA. The rice farm is owned by JA Ashikaga, which is a part of the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives Group, also known as the JA Group. The JA Group has around 10.47 million members and operates at three levels; municipal, prefectural and national. Gairdner grower Brianna Jones said she found the visit to the rice farm interesting and surprising. “I thought with the humidity and the climate perhaps the crops might have more disease, but it doesn’t seem like they suffer from that, like what we do,” she said. “They only have one spray per year, whereas we would have possible three, so that was interesting.” Ms Jones said looking at the rice fields themselves was “amazing”. “(They are) very neat plots and very well planned out. The farmers sort of just let everything grow alongside the paddocks,” she said. “They’re not so worried about weeds and boundary spraying as perhaps we are.” While at the rice farm, growers also got to hear from JA Ashikaga staff about how their farms in the Ashikaga area are run, and how much grain they produce for domestic consumers. JA Ashikaga farms generally grow barley and wheat as a winter crop and grow rice in the spring, all in the same field. Seeding for wheat typically starts in the end of November at a rate of 80kg per hectare, heading takes place at the end of April, and then harvest starts in the beginning of June. On average, JA Ashikaga produces 350 metric tonnes of satonosora wheat every year. Satonosora has a similar quality to Australian noodle wheat and is mainly used for noodle products. JA Ashigaka starts seeding for barley at the end of November at a rate of 85kg per hectare and then begins harvest at the end of May. JA Ashigaka uses a two-row barley variety called new Sachiho Golden, of which the group produces about 2200 metric tonnes every year. For both barley and wheat, farmers use a treading machine on sprouting seedlings a few times in the season. Treading is done to prevent frost damage and unproductive growth, strengthen roots and stop sprouts from falling down during the growing stage. JA Ashigaka handles an average volume of around 32,000mt of rice. Two of the major rice varieties are called Tochigino-hoshi and Asahino-yume. The JA group expects Tochigino-hoshi to yield 5.8 metric tonnes per hectare for the 2024 season, and Asahino-yume is expected to yield 5.4 metric tonnes per hectare in the Tochigi prefecture, where Ashikaga is located. The JR Ashikaga staff told growers the average size of farms in the Ashikaga area ranged from two hectares (small, family run operations) to 10ha (farms run by bigger cooperation). Koorda grower Adam Storer said he enjoyed looking at the grain grown in the area, and comparing the JA Group’s farming operations to what happens back in WA. He said he was surprised by the fact that many farmers in Ashikaga owned their own machinery, despite the relatively small size of their farms. “It’s good to be able to roughly compare it to home and see how different it is and actually physically look at the grain and see what it’s like.” Olivia Ford attended the tour as a guest of the CBH Group.