Learn to plant rice and do charity at Nagano

Japan is renowned worldwide for its cuisine. Even its most fundamental elements – richly aromatic miso soup, hearty, flavourful sushi touched with wasabi, or the universally loved ramen – have become international staples, sought out the world over. Though of course, it goes without saying that they taste the best straight from the source.

But there is a central element of Japanese cuisine which has influenced Japan's culture and politics – even its spiritual traditions – for centuries, and is of ultimate importance to any experience of the cuisine and of Japan itself.

And that's rice.

Rice has been cultivated in Japan since the Yayoi era, in the 3rd century BC, and it is inextricable from Japanese culture. The Japanese word for 'meal', is gohan, which literally means 'cooked rice'. For centuries, the fiefdoms of Japanese lords were understood in terms of their capacity for rice production, or koku, with the wealthiest and most important producing the largest amount. More rice production meant a bigger population, a greater supply of troops, more taxes and a more powerful and influential lord. For generations, Japanese Emperors would ceremonially tend a rice plot on the Imperial grounds in Tokyo to symbolise cultivation of the nation's prosperity, and would bless the annual rice crop. While many films and stories about Japan deal with the lives of heroes and lords, for the average Japanese person over the centuries, their lives depended on the collective labour of rice cultivation, and communities and families centred around it.

The Experience

Every year, we welcome groups of visitors to Nagano prefecture to take part in this most ancient of Japanese activities. Nagano is renowned throughout Japan for the quality of its rice – it is also a magnificent region for travellers, full of hot springs, lofty mountain ranges and historic architecture, including the Zenkō-ji temple in Nagano City.

For this experience, we join Mr. and Mrs. Hirota on their fully organic, sustainable rice farm and help to cultivate the rice crop for the year. Depending on which time of year you come, spring, summer or winter, there will be different work to do, from planting the rice to helping with the harvest.

Planting rice on an organic farm is good, wholesome hard work and the cultivation process itself is fascinating and fulfilling. Aside from the tractor, much of the process is the same as it's been for hundreds of years.

The season begins in April, and the rice seedlings must be carefully planted in straight rows, then covered to protect them from strong winds, with weeds being removed as you go. In July, the rice will have grown from tiny seedlings into beautiful, brilliant green fields of rice plants, and visitors will help to maintain and tend to the rice plants to ensure they continue to grow healthily. In August, it's harvest time! You'll participate in harvesting the rice, and then take part in a local harvest festival as a celebration of the crop and the end of the season. We visit the farm again between December and February, when the focus is mostly on enjoying the recently harvested rice, cooking delicious food, and crafting useful items from rice straw.

It's not easy, but the feeling of accomplishment at the end of each day is second to none. And if you helped to plant the crop, then take part in the harvesting, there is a profound feeling of satisfaction at completing the cycle that has taken place for so many generations. On top of all this, nothing builds an appetite like hard work!

After a morning working on the crop, you can look forward to fresh, homemade food in the Hirota family's comfortable farmhouse using freshly harvested vegetables. Even better, you will learn to prepare and cook some of these delicious regional dishes yourself. One particularly popular dish is gohei-mochi – grilled rice cakes with sweet walnut miso. Walnuts are a local speciality, and the miso is fermented using rice koji from the crop. Once the rice has been washed in fresh Nagano spring water, the gohei-mochi are grilled on a traditional bamboo-fired kama.

You may have eaten rice before, but we're sure you'll never have tasted anything as fragrant as freshly harvested, threshed and winnowed rice. Many of our guests say it's the most delicious thing they have ever tasted! You can also look forward to home-made miso soup prepared using vegetables from the garden. Altogether, the fresh, richly flavourful food, the wholesome smell of bamboo charcoal and the time spent in such close connection with the land will leave you feeling renewed.

No part of the rice that's harvested goes to waste: the rice bran is used as organic fertilizer and the rice straw is used to make brushes, brooms and coasters. Visitors will learn how to weave brushes out of rice straw, and put all of the crop to good use. You'll also meet the rice farmers and their families, who are a very warm and welcoming group of people. By the time you leave, you'll feel as though you have a second family of your own!

While the experience is very fulfilling, it also helps to make the world a little better. 5kg of the organic rice harvested from each of our visitors is donated to non-Japanese in economically difficult situations in Japan via official charities. So just as farmers throughout the centuries, on whom the survival of many people depended, you'll be able to give a little back too.

Contact us to book the Rice Farming Experience