Yokone Rice Terraces Rice Harvesting Experience Event

About this event

Located in Iida City, Nagano Prefecture, 'Yokone Rice Terraces' consists of 110 tiered paddies developed between the Sengoku and Edo periods, and is selected among the 'Top 100 Terraced Paddy Fields in Japan' as well as the 'Connecting Terraced Rice Fields Heritage.' With no houses around, the beautiful landscape of rice fields stretching all over fascinates many people. In this event, at 'Yokone Rice Terraces'—a cultural heritage that conveys the traces of wisdom and hardships of ancestors adapted to mountainous terrain—you can experience traditional manual rice harvesting. Through traditional 'hand-cutting' (tekari), which is rarely experienced in modern times with advancing mechanization, and the 'hazakake' work of sun-drying harvested rice stalks on wooden racks, you can feel the fruitful autumn with your whole body. It is a valuable opportunity where people participating in conservation activities, from adults to children, sweat together, get covered in mud to deepen interactions, and experience tradition and culture. You can perform this important work, which marks the culmination of this year, while learning from local masters.

Venue

Iida City

Iida, Nagano