Artistic rice fields of Japan

Artistic rice fields of Japan

Rice crop art has “sprung up” across rice fields in Japan..

Farmers creating these huge displays use no ink or dye. Instead, different colored rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields.

As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge when viewed from a distance.

A Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants.

The colors are created by using different varieties of rice.  This photo was taken in Inakadate, Japan.

Napoleon on horseback can be seen from the skies.

This was created by precision planting and months of planning by villagers and farmers located in Inkadate, Japan.

The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed Kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed Tsugaru, a Roman variety, to create the colored patterns in the time between planting and harvesting in September.The murals in Inakadate cover 15,000 square meters of paddy fields.

Rice-paddy art started in Japan in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew from meetings of the village committees.

In 2005, agreements between landowners allowed the creation of enormous rice paddy art.
A year later, organizers used computers to precisely plot planting of the four differently colored rice varieties that bring the images to life.