SENDAI--Farmers here are looking forward to bountiful rice harvests once again, thanks to efforts to desalinate some 1,600 hectares of rice paddies inundated by the March 2011 tsunami.
SENDAI--Farmers here are looking forward to bountiful rice harvests once again, thanks to efforts to desalinate some 1,600 hectares of rice paddies inundated by the March 2011 tsunami.
As of this spring, 80 percent of the fields had been desalinated, restoring them to normal conditions and allowing water to flow through them.
The Sendai-Tobu Road runs from north to south through the Sendai Plain, a major rice-producing area. Farmers were able to start planting rice in the fields to the east of the road for the first time in three years.
Kozo Konno, living in the city's Wakabayashi Ward, finished planting rice in 5 hectares of the paddies in May. The 56-year-old Konno expressed his delight, saying, "I was finally able to do it."
The rice plants are growing well at the moment, but many farmers are still concerned over whether they can return to the agricultural productivity that the area enjoyed before the earthquake and tsunami.