This is supported by the Japanese Science and Technology Agency ... who are characterizing microbial communities in rice paddy soils in the Niigata region using next-generation DNA sequencing ...

At least a fifth of rice farms have reported a drop in quality ... Farming ministry data show that only around 15% of Japanese paddy fields have adopted heat resistance variants.

To clear the 1,631 acres to create the facility, Toyota will need to deforest 691 acres, fill the rice paddies and flatten mountains. Flatten mountains? Really? Good thing Toyota also owns Hino ...

to take on the task of tending to vacant rice paddies. Once rice seeds have been planted by a drone, a succession of robotic technologies still to be developed would deal with weeding and reaping.

Photographs she took serve as more than just a visual reference. Filatova has a passion for painting Japanese rice paddies. "Painting the rice fields of Japan brought me peaceful emotions," she says.