All About Rice Farming
Introduction to Rice Farming
Rice is one of the most important crops here in Japan and many Asian countries. Rice farming is said to be started around 10,000 years ago in East Asia. After centuries of development and improvement, rice farming has been modernized by tools and machines with new technology.
In this page, we are going to introduce you the rice agriculture in general and here in Japan specially. We, Japan Agri Trading export from Japan variety of rice farming products from basic cultivator to modernized machinery.
We have a large number of rice farming products in our catalog. Please check our store if you want to know more about the high quality rice farming equipment.
Rice Cultivation Methods
There are two methods of planting rice. Dry rice farming and Wet rice farming (also known as wet-land or wet-paddy agriculture).
Wet rice farming is more popular method for better quality and higher yield. However, the method depends on climate and conditions of your land.
Rice Production Process and Equipment
How long does it take to grow rice? Usually, it takes 6 months to grow and harvest rice between Spring and Autumn.
There are countless types of rice farming depending on countries and regions. In this page, we explain rice farming processes here in Japan.
As you can see, many processes are required to grow and harvest rice. Rice farming has been developed and modernized in long years in order to reduce labor of rice farmers. Nowadays, rice farmers use many types of machineries and technologies in order to get higher yield and the best quality with less labor and working time.
If you want to know more about rice farming equipment, machinery and tools, please click the link on the right columns.
Paddy Cultivation Processes and Equipments
| Seed | Seed rice and nurture seedlings in germination nursery trays. To control temperature is the key factor to grow good rice paddy. |
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| Nurse | Bring rice seedlings in germination trays to vinyl house (green house) and grow them bigger. Growing speed is controlled under artificial environment. | Germination Nursery Trays |
| Cultivate | Cultivate paddy field by a tractor and cultivate the paddy field soil mixing with green manure. |
Tractor |
| Water | Watering the paddy field and cultivate the field more. Ready for the rice planting at this stage. | |
| Transplant | Plant rice seedlings by rice transplanter. Transplanting rice seedlings by hands is very tiresome. The rice transplanter can plant seedlings accurately in short time. |
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| Ditch | Making furrows with a furrow opener. Opening furrows produces better quality of rice. By being careful of such a detail, you will find how important process it is at harvest time. | |
| Weed | Maintain good condition in paddy field by weed killing, pesticide application and supply fertilizers. |
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| Harvest |
After rice has grown, harvest and thresh rice by combine harvester. Combine harvester is one of the principal machines of modernized rice farming. From small to large paddy field, the latest combine harvester can harvest rice in less labor but high-yield. "Combine" Harvesters combine 4 functions in one machine: reaping, threashing, gathering and winnowing. Reaper Binders are cutting rice paddy and bind paddies with a string to small amount. |
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| Dry | Dry rice after harvesting by harvest combine in order to control the quality of rice. We recommend mesh type container bags to keep rice dry by taking fresh air. It is said that amount of moisture should be kept at 15% usually. |
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| Hull | Rice Huller produces brown rice from unhulled rice. Hulling Machine (Rice Husker) separates rice husks from brown rice. Our Rice Hullers are engineered especially for rice hulling. By using hulling machine, you can reduce a lot of labor and time on rice harvesting. |
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| Polish | Polish brown rice by a Rice Polisher. A Rice Polisher removes bran from brown rice. By polishing rice, you will get white rice finally. This is the second step of rice processing. |
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| Pack | Scale the weight and pack polished white rice. Sorting defects and small rice is also important to maintain the good quality to deliver to consumers. |
Please note that rice farming process and method vary depending on farmers and the paddy field conditions. These are common rice farming processes.
Rice Milling Process
We will explain the process of white rice production first.
After harvesting rice, unhulled rice is harvested by rice combine harvesters. Combine harvesters will separate rice from its stem.
After packing the unhulled rice in grain bags, it will be hulled by a rice huller. A rice huller removes rice husks (chaffs) and other foreign substances. Brown rice will be proccessed by rice hullers.
Then, brown rice will be polished by polishing machines and the bran will be removed.
If necessary, use other related machines and supplies, such as rice destoners, sorting machines, rice checkers and rice bags.
Rice Milling Machines
Rice Milling Machines are categorized in several classes: Rice Huller, Polisher, Dryer, Destoner and Sorter / Scale. Some machines are able to operate multiple functions.
High-Performance Rice Huller
Rice Huller precisely separates chaffs from un-hulled rice.
Some of our Rice Hullers have a roller-less feature that operates without any tiresome adjustments. Those rice hullers are designed to reduce wasting of the harvested rice and they can separate 98% of rice from the rice husks.
The higher grade models have the optical sensors which automatically control the angle of the sorting boards. The feature makes it possible to run continuously without stopping when loading different sizes of rice one after the other.
Japanese farm equipment is designed to work in farmers' environment. The Rice Huller sends the dust through the exhaust filter that cleans the dust in order to keep your workplace always dust-free.
We have a lot of Rice Milling Machines with a variety of sizes and functions. Please visit our Rice farming products and see all of the rice farming equipment.
Rice Destoner / Stone Extracting Machine
It is very common that there are small stones mixed in rice bags after harvesting. Small stones may damage the machines during milling process. The Stone Extracting Machine will eliminate stones from rice in advance.
Rice Polishing Machine
Our Rice Polishing and Cleaning Machine remove rice bran from brown rice. The Rice Polishing Machine produces white rice, as a result.
Rice Sorting and Scaling Machine
The last process of rice harvesting is to pack the white rice in rice bags and measure the weight. The Rice Scaling machine weighs and packs the rice to bags efficiently.
Rice Grain Bag / Rice Checker
We have various other rice equipment too.
The Rice Container Bags keep rice dry. The Container Bags are called FIBC (Flexible Intermediate Bulk Container), Bulk Bag or Flexible Container Bag.
Rice Moisture Meter/Tester is a very famous compact rice moisture meter (tester) made by Oga Electric Co., Ltd. You can judge the best moisture level according to the quality of rice. You can show the result of rice quality to buyers outside.
Types and Quality of Japanese Rice
Japanese consumers demand high quality rice because rice is staple food here in Japan.
To harvest quality rice, many equipment are used in each farming process. Additionally, inspection of rice is very important in the field to know the best harvest time. Rice inspection machine is one of the new technologies developed to verify the quality of rice.
Japanese Rice Brands
In Japan, we inspect rice quality according to Japanese regulations. Farmers cannot indicate the rice brand name without the official certification by authority.
Hundreds of rice brands are certified here in Japan. Just a few names of the popular brands are Koshihikari, Sasanishiki, Hitomebore and newly developed Shinnosuke and many more.
In agricultural laboratories, improvement and development of new rice species are progressing day by day. Not only the taste but farmers and workers in laboratories develop also healthier and stronger rice even in the difficult conditions caused by flood, drought or insect damage.
Brown Rice
In the global demand for healthy and organic foods, brown rice is getting popular around the world. Brown rice is rice without hull (chaff) of rice. White rice is hulled and polished brown rice.
Brown rice contains more vitamin, mineral and dietary fiber and it is considered as nutritious crop and healthy food.
Niigata Koshihikari
Niigata brand Japanese rice are available now. We deliver only carefully selected rice.
Koshihikari rice from Niigata, which is high quality and one of the best taste of rice grown in the mountainous areas of Niigata prefecture.
Japanese Kanji Words of Rice and Paddy Field
Japanese word for rice is kome. Japanese kanji character for rice is described as below.
Japanese word for paddy field is ta. Kanji character for paddy field is described as below.
As you can see, it is symbolized from rice field image viewing from above.
Those kanjis are commonly used in the name of persons or towns due to the historical relationship with Japanese culture and people.
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