TheRice Straw Organizations in Japan :Preservation and Development Methods of Japanese Rice Straw Culture

Japan has been listed by FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) as the top ten countries with the most rice producers in the world. In line with this achievement, Japan is known for its rice straw utilization culture or in Japanese called nihon no wara no bunka. In the modern era nowadays, Japanese rice straw culture, the same as another majority of traditional cultural problems, is gradually abandoned by the community. To tackle this situation, several people who have a concern in rice straw culture were initiating a rice straw community. In this research, there are data from three rice straw communities that have been collected such as Inagaki Wara no Kai, Warashibe, and Mingikai. These communities are working to preserve and develop the rice straw culture and have been successfully increasing the interest of both young and old generations inside the community to participate in the events. To sustainably run the activities there are several aspects to be considered by the rice straw communities in Japan, such as management, development, marketing and economic strategies.