Rice Paddy Art

(c) Captain76 - Wikipedia

There are some grasses whose very existence is honored and celebrated.

Such is the case for rice (Oryza sativa), which is by far the most important human food crop in the world, and directly feeds several billion people.

This species is so important to some cultures that it shows up not only in their religion, but also in their arts.

I have always been fascinated by rice paddy art, which I learned about several years back, where people use different varieties of rice to create pictures that can be seen from the air due to the different colors of the rice plants as they mature.

Perhaps the most famous town that does this is the town of Inakadate in Japan, which started the annual event in the early 1990s as a way to attract tourists.

Here is a video of the town and its work: