When you walk through the countryside in Niigata, you’ll see a network of narrow irrigation channels criss-crossing between the rice paddies.
This is an irrigation channel. It determines which rice paddies receive water flowing down from the mountains, when, and in what quantity. This network of channels stretches for several kilometres, covering the entire village. The water flows, nourishing the rice paddies, before continuing on to the next channel. At first glance, it is an ordinary sight, but maintaining this system requires the cooperation and consensus of the entire village.
Rice farming has shaped the community. The essence of this lies in the management of water.
To begin with, why did rice cultivation become so widespread in Japan?
In Japan, a country with many mountains and limited flat land, the primary challenge for survival was to feed as many people as possible from the limited land available. The answer lay in rice. Rice was a crop that could reliably yield a large amount of food from a limited area of land.As a crop enabling many people to live on a small amount of land, rice was one of the key solutions that allowed so many people to thrive in this country. It keeps well, is highly nutritious, and—provided there is water—can adapt widely to Japan’s climate and topography. The choice to cultivate rice made it possible for so many people to live long and prosperous lives on this island nation.
However, rice cultivation has one defining characteristic: it requires large quantities of water on a continuous basis.
Although barley and maize also require water, they do not necessitate a system whereby the entire village works together to maintain water levels in the fields to the same extent as rice cultivation. Of course, there is some collective work involved, but in terms of water management, individual farmers can operate with a degree of independence. Rice is different. The paddies must always be kept at the correct water level, and someone must constantly monitor the irrigation channels that bring that water down from the mountains.
This irrigation channel does not belong to just one farming household. It is a shared asset used by all the farmers in the village, from upstream to downstream. If a farmer upstream were to monopolise the water, the rice paddies downstream would dry up.If anyone neglected to maintain the canal, it would become blocked with silt, affecting the whole system. In order to decide on water allocations, maintain the canal and resolve any disputes, the entire village had to hold discussions, establish rules and ensure that everyone adhered to them.
The system of sharing water lies at the heart of Japanese communities. As mentioned in the previous chapter, a system for sharing water has been cultivated in Japan since ancient times.
Rice cultivation gradually transformed this collective management into part of everyday life. Water was not the property of individuals, but rather the shared asset of the village.
By choosing to cultivate rice, Japanese villages came to live in harmony with the ‘collective management of water’.
A strong community is essential for the collective management of water resources. Cultures designed to sustain such communities have developed in various forms throughout Japan.
It is sometimes said that the Japanese place great importance on tradition and value harmony within the group. But perhaps this was simply a form of wisdom that enabled them to carry on with their daily lives.
In order to maintain the irrigation channels, the entire village must cooperate over the long term. If even one person acts arbitrarily, it will disrupt the overall water management. The culture of ‘adhering to the rules we have all agreed upon’ arose out of the need to protect a community that shares water resources.
The same applies to customs and traditions. Every year, water is drawn at the same time and rice is planted at the same time. By coordinating these schedules across the entire village, the distribution of water runs smoothly. Following established practice served a practical purpose in reducing the community’s coordination costs.
Perhaps this way of life, characterised by shared stewardship, lay behind the sentiment often described as ‘cherishing harmony’.
The community spirit fostered by rice farming has been passed down even to places far removed from the rice fields.
Festivals are a prime example of this. They began as events held at key stages of the rice-planting and harvesting cycles to pray for a bountiful harvest and give thanks for the produce. Rather than as individuals, the entire village would join hands in prayer to the gods. Sharing this experience was also an opportunity to reaffirm the bonds of the community.The Nagaoka Fireworks Festival, too, has continued as a venue for sharing prayers for the repose of the departed and for reconstruction.
Neighbourhood associations and residents’ associations also form part of the lineage of rice-farming communities. Cleaning roads, disaster preparedness, and organising local events—there are certain tasks that are better handled when the local community takes the initiative rather than the local authorities asking individuals to do so. The spirit of ‘protecting our own neighbourhood ourselves’ has been passed down from the days when irrigation channels were managed collectively.
This spirit remains particularly strong in snowy regions. Every winter, the shared challenge of snow has brought people together. They help their neighbours clear snow and work together to clear the roads. It is this accumulation of small acts that has forged the bonds of community in everyday life.
In Nagaoka, there are two tales that pass on the wisdom of this land.
The first is ‘One Hundred Bō of Rice’. The Nagaoka Domain, defeated in the Boshin War, suffered a devastating blow. Whilst the domain’s samurai were struggling to find enough to eat, one hundred bō of rice arrived from a subordinate domain. Naturally, there were calls to distribute it as food.However, Kobayashi Torasaburō, who was the governor at the time, decided to sell the rice and use the proceeds to build a school.
‘Even a hundred bales of rice will be gone in no time once eaten. But if used for education, it will become ten thousand or a million bales of rice tomorrow.’
It is precisely because times are hard now that we must invest in the future. The spirit behind the ‘One Hundred Bags of Rice’ story was an investment in the next generation. Rather than consuming all the rice now, it was set aside for the next generation. That is the very essence of the concept of ‘trusted stewardship’.
The second story is about a cup known as the ‘Sufficient Cup’.
There is a cup with a clever mechanism, said to have been used by the Makino family of the Nagaoka Domain to convey a message to their samurai. Although it looks like an ordinary cup, the moment it is filled beyond eight-tenths full, the siphon principle comes into play, causing all the liquid inside to flow out from the bottom.
It is a teaching that urges us to know when we have enough.
The moment you try to be greedy and fill the vessel to the brim, you lose everything. Being content with eight-tenths of a full cup is the key to making things last. If you monopolise the water in the irrigation channel, the community will fall apart. If you eat all the rice, nothing will be left for the next generation. The ‘Ten-Bu Cup’ was a tool that conveyed this principle not through words, but through experience.
I feel that the sense of ‘knowing when one has enough’, nurtured by a community that shares water, is deeply rooted in the spirit of the Nagaoka region.
Looking at local communities today, it is clear that these communities are under strain.
More and more households are giving up farming, and rice paddies are being converted into residential land. As nuclear families become more common, opportunities to meet neighbours face to face are dwindling. Membership of neighbourhood associations is falling, and there are not enough people to organise local festivals. It is not that the need to maintain a sense of community has diminished; rather, the very foundation that has sustained that community—rice farming—has changed.
The community, too, is something entrusted to us.
Will our generation take on the ‘system of living together’ that our forebears have built up over many generations, and pass it on to the next? I believe it is fine for the form to change. However, I would like to pass on to the next generation the fundamental spirit born of rice farming: ‘supporting one another to achieve what cannot be done alone’.
Sharing water. Knowing when enough is enough. Passing it on to future generations.
That feeling still lingers in the town of Nagaoka.
ATSUSHI KABASAWA
FARM8 Co. Ltd.,
