The mud actually feels good on your feet
Some kind of like spa treatment
Usually pay 100, right?
Hundreds of dollars, usually
In this video we're going to Peace & Nature NPO
Organic farm in Kobe Japan
Bahram, an Iranian man, alongside his wife Shinobu,
has worked to develop the farm for the past 18 years
Working side with their Japanese neighbors,
They strived to retain the appreciation of old method of Japanese farming
Integrating with that,
sustainability
technology
All at the same time
Pretty impressive, right?
He specifically accomplished by holding weekend events
Where participants can come, and experience first hand
What it is like to actually take part in this traditional style of communal planting
This is what you will see today
Along with the "community focus"
"community accomplished"
"traditional rice farming"
We're also going to hear from some of the students who participated
And don't be fooled, these students grew up in Japan
They're going to give insight on what farming means to them personally and community
and as well as how they are involved with the farm
for these technological initiatives that they have placed to help the environment
Naturally I was in a huge rush to discover what an completely inapt rice farmer I would make
but Bahram explained in our orientation that
That would be perceived by cutting down bamboo first
And that had 2 full purpose of helping the neighboring farmers,
but also because where the bamboo had grown up
was where the rice fields were before
So you needed to remove them first, before you can plant more
So it's just beyond this path
Up over the hill, we walked over the edge
I suppose of the local mountain range,
That is where you can do your bamboo chopping
As you can see you can see a lot of bamboo growing wild around
But it's covering a lot of rice field
And the idea is to clean up
So we can give identity to the village back
because there are beautiful rice there this year
And we can use the bamboo, because it's an amazing grass
It works very well in structure, even for architecture
but in this case, we will ground it,
make it into powder and use it for fertilizing the field
There's a lot going on at OZO Base
That involves youth and tries to get kids involved in youth programs
Get really in touch with nature
Do things like the rice planting
but that's an inward initiative
But they are also looking outward
with the power of technology
They have accomplished that in a variety of interesting ways as well.
My name is David, and for my school project I have collaborated with OZO base
to promote forest sustainability using social media
The # I created was #10000treechallengekobe
This project is intended for Kobe but
it is appreciated to become a global initiative
so please post planting a tree using the hashtag
And this will help this project and the environment
ok so we have our safety gear today
and we have our helmet since we don't know what will fall off a tree
And then we have our trusty blades
They were just saying as well that
because it rains so much
There's a lot of frogs
And frogs are food for snakes so
we got to be extra careful of those as well
Now here I'm going to give you guys a dark fact
Bamboo grows notoriously fast
For that reason, it was used a long long time ago,
as a torture device
where they would lay people over the bamboo,
and it will grow so quickly
but still agonizingly slow
but they would grow up through the person who were laid up on top of them
and kill them
You never thought you'd get that on Waoryu! ONLY in JAPAN, did you?
Unquestionably one of the highlights of the day was,
not only the younger kids,
but the students who participated in the day's event
were really enjoying the experience
We make this assumption about the younger generation
that they would only be entertained when we put them in front of a screen,
but when they were sharing their experience of enjoying this and why,
it really spoke to the contrary,
and demonstrated why functions like this are so
still valuable for youthful minds
Always nice when the vegetables harvest
because then my mom brings them home and we have fresh vegetables
and it's sustainable here so there are no chemicals
and things like that in the food you're eating
and you know where it's coming from, which is nice.
This is a perfect place I'm standing right here to highlight
how the shadow can cast over the rice field
and when you clear it out, when you clear out the bamboo that is,
these are collective fields in the sense that
they are right next to each other in the sense of ownership
There is peace and nature initiative here
for ONO compound
but there are also the locals who live here
who have their rice paddies next to each other
And when you clear out a space like this
you're helping yourself but you're also helping your neighbor
and that's another kind of active community they are trying to support
with the initiative here
Next up in our day
we're going to plant some rice
Now the thing about the planting we are doing today is that
it's obviously without any machine
The whole mentality here is,
sustainable
That means doing it yourself
I think it's very valuable to feel
directly connected to whatever that is
going to provide you with nourishment
FOOD
Today we got to directly participate in that,
and I think things are going to get pretty wet
because I was told I have to wear these half length pants
and we're going in bare foot
so there is no turning back now
In the west,
farming is thought as something individual or by each household
so they have been using machinery
but in the Japanese farming culture
is said to have started 6000 years ago in Yayoi period
and did not see the development of machinery
so a community of manpower was needed to grow crops
Today we're doing without the machine
When you have the machine you have it uniformly spaced for you
To overcome that, today we have on either side of the patty,
they have individuals with poles with string attached
which extends across the patties
and at intervals along that string was
red marks which indicates people that are planting
where they should put the rice in
It obviously take more time
but that tactile sense involved is cool
You plant one line across that string,
And those with poles move back half a foot,
and you continue
And another detail which is easy to make mistake
the line moves forward when you're putting in the rice
you always put it in the other side of the string
so it doesn't get pulled over when they move to the next line
The mud actually feels really good in your feet
yeah it's so satisfying
It's sort of like some spa treatment
You would usually pay 100s, right?
This would be 100s of dollars usually.
Yeah, for free
This war paint, is not simply because it feels cool to wear war paint
and I don't do this often
It actually has a totally practical reason
When you put this on,
you 're going to protect you from the sun
natural protectant against being burnt all day
Not only that
but if you have this mud on you,
of course it's going to protect you from the insects as well
Insects could be a huge irritant when you're out here so
finally getting to play in the mud like a kid
but this time with utility
is incredibly satisfying
Just as assuredly
as the sun burnt arms I got from this trip
I also earned appreciation for physical labor again
It was so much fun to get out there
go out to the act of planting rice
I've always been curious to do that
Thanks so much to Bahram and Steen
to being so accommodating
I feel like a changed man after this
I will never look at the food in Japan quite the same way
and be with a greater appreciation
Thank you as well for watching and tuning in
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For now that's all. Have a great day
Take care out there and we'd see you in the next video