Organic Rice Grown in Biomass Project

Tomioka Town, Fukushima Prefecture, has been promoting a project to grow food using composted biomass under the slogan, "Give It a Try! Slow Food Tomioka."

Located at the midway point of Fukushima Prefecture's Pacific coast, the town has an area of 68.47 square kilometers and a population of 16,000. Together with "Organic Town Tomioka," a local farmers' association, local consumers and farm produce processing companies, the town founded a research group called "Recycle in an Organic Spirit" in fiscal 2000. Since then, the town has been researching and promoting ways to grow food using compost through the combined efforts of the local government, the public, and companies.

The town generates about 13,000 tons of biomass annually, divided into two categories, one including roughly 7,100 tons of food waste, tree bark, and livestock manure, and another made up of about 5,800 tons of rice straw and wood waste. The project aims to compost biomass such as food waste from the local community, tree bark from lumber mills, rice chaff, and the remains of salmon discarded after collecting their eggs for artificial insemination. By having the farmers' association play a central role in the project, the town hopes to gain a competitive edge for its agricultural industry through branding and marketing organic rice grown using the compost.

In fiscal 2005, the town built a compost facility and started to promote the idea of collecting food waste for composting and growing organic rice. Full-scale operation of the compost facility is expected in fiscal 2006. In fiscal 2008, the town plans to generate enough compost to fertilize 200 hectares (about 494 acres) of rice fields, which accounts for about 35 percent of the 570 hectares (about 1,408 acres) of rice fields currently under cultivation in the region.


http://www.pref.fukushima.jp/index_e.html

Posted: 2006/01/13 11:39:39 AM
Japanese version