Foreign Friday

Rice fields ready for harvest

Northern Japan

Autumn 1979

The rice was cut and grouped into bundles or shocks.

 The shocks were then hung on support poles to cure and dry.

When the rice was sufficiently dry, the combine 

was brought into the field.

The dried shocks were fed through a combine by hand. 

Bags attached to the machine collected the rice grains. 

Fields are burned after the harvest. 

This video illustrates the rice harvest today, thirty-two years later. 

The process is considerably less labor intensive

 but not nearly as picturesque.