Harrowing the rice paddy before winter sets in, preparing the ground for next spring's muddy transplanting

On the south side of Echizen city center, not far from the river levee road along the west bank of the Hino River is a section of rice paddy that is still producing rice, even as new construction cuts into the rich land, year by year. Around lunchtime on this Friday a farmer puts his compact tractor into the field and churns the soil before the freezing temperatures of winter come. Others wait until things again become soft in the spring before doing this step in the rice growing cycle.

Until 2019 or so the many part-time farming families have been enjoying subsidies to produce rice year after year, but bigger rice fields, bigger equipment, better crop varieties, and decreasing per person rice consumption (indeed the aggregate national population is decreasing) result in excess grain. So the subsidy will begin to go away, in effect making the return on one's labor, time, and equipment debts, become too much to carry on the livelihood in the paddy fields in many cases. And with the average age of growers something like 60 or older, with few younger people learning the skills needed to plan and carry out production, perhaps this national strategy to cut down home-grown food makes sense.