Field Mustard Project of HARU

    Hello, this is Kitazawa of HARU Public Relations.

Thank you all for reading our blog.

This time I would like to share one of the projects of HARU, Field Mustard Project.

    This is the first time sharing this project and it's about the end of the year, I would like to review the hole activity they have done. Please stay tuned till the end.

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    The motivator was in July. A professor of agricultural department contacted us if we wanted to work on Field Mustard Project with him. We thought we first should see the place, so we participated in slime raking in July. I could hear from one of the participants:

"We have raked 1.4 ha paddy with 100 people including students and staffs of Tohoku University, Japan Red Cross, and NPO Miyagi Disaster Relief Volunteer Center. I thought there wouldn't be any grass because of brine damage, but there actually was full of grass."

"However it seemed like the ecological system was damaged, as we could see only few kinds were growing there. We felt the necessity of recovery from brine damage."

"Each participants shared roles and worked on them in silence. I felt it quite nice that we could corroborate with each other, although we were actually first met. However we could finish only 2/3of what we planed to finish. There were 100 people worked 5 hours. I came up with a question that 'how much percentage we have done today of the whole affected paddy?'"

"But at the same time, I thought all the participants felt that we could make progress even a step or half a step. I thought that we could deliver a warm light of hope to hearts of who hope reconstruction, which is another intensional of this Field Mustard Project."

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    As this student have mentioned, even if we live in Tohoku, there so many things we don't know what's happening at coast side. Though many projects to help fields are introduced on media, still there are much much more fields or paddies undone. I didn't realize it until I went to the place.

    After this, HARU have decided to work on it together. After working on planting and thinning in October, now the field mustard have grown to here. (They look delicious already!)

    Besides, some people who were taking a walk talked to us looking interested. I realized that those people who live near here found it put forth buds, and will find swelling of buds and blooming of fine yellow first. NOT US!

    We are not going to Wakabayashi ward every day nor have we had much communication with local people. We have worked with some of them, but that I feel is not enough. So I planed on making a display to have local people know about us and watch the field mustard together. (We have just made the base the other day:)

    We are planning on placing the display on the field in a few weeks, after putting our introduction and some other stuff.

    Also we are planning on a event or something to go with blooming and harvesting of the field mustard, involving local people.

-How about sketching competition?

-Why don't we learn how the field mustards work for brine damage with local people from professors?

-How can we reduce to local people and farmers by events?

etc.

That is all for my report on its activity.

P.S. It was my first time going to Wakabayashi ward on this project.

Green grass was growing in the photo above because it was summer, in fall I saw many fields covered with tall, light brown grass. Normally they were having harvest season. That grass wasn't supposed to be there. I am participating in this for my wish to be any strength to farmers. So I am willing to hang on to this longer.

Sorry for being this report so long, but thank you for reading all through.

S.Kitazawa