Japanese Rice Art

 

The residents of Inakadate have been drawing pictures with rice since 1993.  Each year farmers in the town of Inakadatein Aomori prefecture create works of crop art by growing a little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru-roman variety.

This year’s creation — a pair of grassy reproductions of famous woodblock prints from Hokusai’s 36 Views of Mount Fuji — has begun to appear and will be visible until the rice is harvested in September.

While Inakadate is Japan’s most famous rice paddy decorating town, there practice is spreading further ‘afield.’