Have you ever witnessed farmers diligently working in their green rice fields? Or, have you seen beautiful, golden rice ears waving in the breeze? God has bestowed many precious gifts upon our Earth for all beings to share, including rice, whose ears are a favorite food of birds. The leaves of rice plants provide the gentle water buffalo with sustenance.

In return, animals also help in the growth of the plants. For example, ducks leisurely walking through rice fields enhance the sprouting of seedlings and their healthy growth. Under the Creator’s perfect plan, all animals and plants thus live together in harmony.

Greetings, wise viewers, and welcome to the first in a two-part program on growing organic rice. Organic rice is superior to conventionally grown rice for a number of reasons including its cultivation which involves no spraying of chemicals that are poisonous to the environment and consumers need not worry about ingesting pesticide residue when eating this type of rice.

Today, we’re honored to hear from Mr. Chen Shih-hsiung, president of Ming Dao University in Formosa (Taiwan) and the Association of Formosa (Taiwan) Organic Agriculture Promotion, an expert on organic rice production. He will kindly describe the initial stages of rice farming and how various cultivation challenges are overcome with organic methods.

Rice has a long history dating back at least 14,000 years to ancient China, and is one of humanity’s most important staple foods, with half the world’s population consuming it daily. For people in Southeast Asian nations such as Indonesia, Âu Lạc (Vietnam) and Thailand rice on average comprises 60% of their diet.

Thailand is the world’s top exporter of rice, shipping out about 8 million tons a year. Rice comes in a variety of types, with different shapes, textures, forms and amounts of starch. Jasmine rice from Thailand and basmati rice from India are highly popular varieties because of their splendid aroma and grand taste. Being a tropical plant, rice grows best in warm, humid environments. The planting process includes seed sprouting, land preparation, seedling transplantation, weeding and harvesting.

Traditionally, farmers sprouted rice seeds on their own land, with seedlings being transplanted into the fields at about eight centimeters high. Nowadays, however, sprouting is usually done in containers in nursery gardens. President Chen will now introduce the organic way of seed sprouting.

Nowadays we have nursery gardens that can help you with seed germination before sowing. There won’t be any problem as long as you tell the nursery garden staff, not to sterilize seeds with chemical sterilization. They usually use chemical sterilization. So you need to ask them to use other methods. For example, they can use vinegar to sterilize. Bacteria are gone after vinegar sterilization. Then you start to sow.

Of course, in the process of growing, you hope the rice shoots grow stronger, so you may use some organic fertilizers such as plant ash, which increases potassium. Stems and branches grow stronger after absorbing these substances. Brine enables the partially filled seeds to float, while the filled seeds remain underwater. Then the germination rate will be better.

Land preparation involves plowing and harrowing, which make the soil soft and loose. Nutrients for rice plants are also mixed into the earth. Land preparation can help rice plants grow better. In the past, farmers had to till the land with hoes, but nowadays, the work of soil turning is done by machines.

Before you transplant seedlings, you need to plow the land. Basically, it’s best that you apply fertilizer while plowing. The best form of fertilizer is compost. If you fertilize with 4,000 kilograms of organic compost per hectare, the nutrition is enough. In fact, it’s not necessary to fertilize too much.

When the land is prepared, farmers can start to transplant seedlings. Traditionally, a kind of tool is used to mark the spots for the seedlings. When transplanting rice seedlings by hand, farmers wear a seedling-separating device on the thumb of their left hand to facilitate the work. Nowadays, however, seedling transplantation is usually done with a seedling planter, but in places with irregular, rugged topography, the transplanting still needs to be done by hand.

Theoretically speaking, leaving a bigger space between plants is preferred, so that the stems can grow stronger and the plants won’t shade one another, and thus have less insect damage and disease. So it’s better if the space between the rows can be at least 30 centimeters. Don’t plant too many rice seedlings in one spot. Many farmers put in too many.

For the first crop season, many kinds of rice can be planted, so it is enough to plant three rice seedlings in one spot. For the second crop season, since the temperatures are higher, less kinds of rice can be planted, so you can plant five to seven seedlings in one spot. With lower density and bigger space between plants, there will be less insect damage and disease.

When we return, we’ll explore other green techniques organic rice farmers use to address insects and disease affecting their plants. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to our program on organic rice production. Conventional agriculture has been heavily reliant on pesticides and herbicides to grow crops, but this approach is counterproductive. The chemicals seriously harm people, animals and the environment. A few years ago, President Chen discovered the many deleterious effects of modern farming and since has dedicated himself to promoting organic farming.

Basically, our modern agriculture is a type of lethal agriculture. During the production process when farmers spray chemical pesticides their health is affected. They inhale a lot of pesticides that are harmful to their health. Also, when the pesticides are sprayed onto the fields, not only the plant-eating bugs are killed, but also the beneficent insects. The bugs will become tougher and more resistant to the pesticides, and you will need to use a higher dose each time.

Also, pesticide residues will remain on crops and rice that we purchase and eat. After the consumers eat it, their health also gets threatened. Further, the chemicals get absorbed into the soil, and destroy all the microbes in the soil. Finally when the chemicals go into the sea they finish off all the marine life, including the plankton.

There are natural and gentle methods to cultivate the food for our table. One way is choosing to grow those species of rice which are most hardy and have the strongest immunity to disease and insects. Encouraging ducks to come into one’s field is a simple way to keep weeds under control.

President Chen says that by walking through the rice paddies, the ducks naturally step down on weeds so they will not grow and their action of walking makes the water muddy and thus also inhibits weed growth. He will now explain another green method to prevent weeds from sprouting.

To avoid weeds among fields, nowadays, farmers practice chemical farming; herbicides are used after irrigation. When the herbicides are dissolved and spread all over, all the weed seeds will die and could not sprout. However, we cannot do this in organic farming. Then what should we do?

We surely have other methods. For example, we may spread rice bran or red bean powder to the fields. Their fermentation will create heat that neutralizes weed seeds. Yet, water control is the easiest way to rid of weeds, because weeds cannot grow in deep water.

Azolla, which is also called red waterfern, because it turns red in autumn, is yet another natural technique to keep weeds at a minimum in rice fields.

We scatter azolla seeds in irrigation water to rice fields, and very soon, they will grow all over the fields. During the first crop season, the temperatures are lower so azolla grows very well. When the field is covered by azolla, no weeds can grow. This is number one. Another benefit is that azolla can form symbiotic relationships with blue-green algae, which can convert nitrogen in the air into fertilizer, so azolla is also a kind of green manure.

Chemical fertilizers are not used to grow organic rice, rather only Earth-friendly ways to nourish the crop are used.

The key to soil management is improving the ecosystem and making the organisms or microorganisms in the soil work for you. Therefore, you should put organic matter into the soil from time to time for the organisms to eat. Then they will quickly breed and work for you after feeding. So, regarding soil management for organic rice, the first principle is that you should always grow some plants in your field, even during winter time.

In Formosa, normally, farmers only grow plants in the first and second crop seasons. The rice production rate is higher in the first crop season, so we suggest you mainly grow rice plants. But during the second crop season and winter crop season, you can also grow some green manure plants, which can be plowed back into the soil to feed the organisms and microorganisms. And then they will breed rapidly and work for you in large numbers. Finally, the soil will become well-mixed, fertile and very good with a good structure. Then we can plant paddy rice again in the next crop season. So it’s pretty good.

The cost of conventionally grown rice to the environment is significant and if all rice farmers switched to organic cultivation a great burden would be lifted from our lands.

The reason that the cost of growing organic rice is so high and the cost of chemical farming is so low is that we forget to include many invisible costs. These include the environmental cost, people’s health and social costs. If we add them in and calculate carefully, we may find that using chemical pesticides and fertilizers to produce rice may cost even more than growing organic rice.

Our sincere thanks President Chen Shih-hsiung, for your detailed explanations and efforts to encourage organic rice farming. May Heaven bless your noble work, so that many more farmers will join the ranks of those practicing organic agriculture. Intelligent viewers, please join us again tomorrow for part two of our program where we’ll describe how organic rice is harvested, and becomes a fragrant dish on our dining tables.

For more details on President Chen, please visit
Thank you for your presence today on our program. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment, after Noteworthy News. May we enjoy abundance and peace for all time.

Have you ever witnessed farmers diligently working in their green rice fields? Or, have you seen beautiful, golden rice ears waving in the breeze? God has bestowed many precious gifts upon our Earth for all beings to share, including rice, whose ears are a favorite food of birds. The leaves of rice plants provide the gentle water buffalo with sustenance.

In return, animals also help in the growth of the plants. For example, ducks leisurely walking through rice fields enhance the sprouting of seedlings and their healthy growth. Under the Creator’s perfect plan, all animals and plants thus live together in harmony.

Greetings, valued viewers, and welcome to the conclusion of our two-part program on growing organic rice. Yesterday, an expert on organic rice production, Mr. Chen Shih-hsiung, president of Ming Dao University in Formosa (Taiwan) and the Association of Formosa (Taiwan) Organic Agriculture Promotion discussed the initial stages of cultivating organic rice plants. Today, we meet some rice organic farmers, cover the latter stages of organic rice production, and learn about some of the delicious rice dishes that are enjoyed in Asia.

When we’re in harmony with nature, it will in turn give us countless gifts. Now, an organic rice farmer who used to work in a big city will share the genuine feelings in his heart about his benevolent occupation.

Mr. Lin, can you tell us what made you want to get involved with organic rice farming?

It is to improve the farming environment, to protect our environment from the harmful effects of chemical fertilizers, so we can live in harmony with all beings. Also, when people eat our produce, they won’t need to worry about the dangers of pesticides. That’s how we started.

What’s your feeling when you touch the Earth while working in a paddy field?

It’s a very solid feeling. I feel very natural and healthy. It makes me feel very happy. Life on the farm is busy and never slow, but does not have the kind of intense pressure of urban life. You can be very relaxed enjoying the sunshine, gentle breeze, and beautiful scenery.

Mr. Yoshikazu Kawaguchi of Nara, Japan is the pioneer of the Natural Farming method and uses no chemical pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers in his rice fields.

The period of planting rice seedlings is equivalent to childhood for humans. So rice seedlings will be planted in their youth, but we plant rice seedlings in a rice field. And it takes about a month for the rice seedlings to grow into young adulthood.

If summer grasses grow in this period, rice crops will be overtaken after all. In such a case, farmers will cut the weeds and line the rice field with the cut weeds. Then the rice crops will quickly grow into young adulthood after a month. Their life-span is half a year, so their growth is quick. They quickly build their bodies.

Even after they have built their bodies, there are weeds below. Various weeds are below. Various weeds allow various small insects to live. When various small insects exist there, they will help make plants thrive. So they will make rice crops thrive. This is the cycle of life.

According to Mr. Kawaguchi, nature alone provides all the nutrients needed by the rice crops, and weeds actually play an integral role in enriching the soil for all forms of life.

We tend to think that weeds may absorb the nutrients that are given for the rice crops, and thus crop yields may be less. However, it is not true in the natural world. When rice is growing and various weeds are growing within its area, the soil becomes rich. We can notice this when we look at things from a little wider perspective.

President Chen will now introduce us to the latter stages of rice production and how farmers know when it is time to harvest the crop.

When the rice turns yellow and matures, we can harvest it. In the beginning, the rice ear emerges and then it blossoms and pollinates itself. Then, the endosperms grow and develop into seeds. Now, it comes into the milky ripe stage. At this stage, if you press the grain, some fluid-like milk will come out. This is the milky ripeness stage, at which the rice cannot be harvested yet.

We need to wait until it turns golden. When it does, it’s in the yellow ripe stage. If you open the grain, you can see that it is full and round, and very hard. Then you can harvest the rice. But do not wait until the dried stage. It will be too late. The rice quality will not be good, and the yield will decrease. The yellow ripe stage is the best time to harvest. It’s best to choose to harvest on a sunny day at this stage.

In Formosa (Taiwan), people use rice combine harvesters to harvest. They drive the harvester around which can cut, thresh, and winnow the rice. The machine can also cut rice straw into short pieces. Then, the grains are packed in bags and stored in a barn.

During the process of producing organic rice, each step needs to be handled with care, including storage after drying. It’s usually stored at a temperature of 15 degrees Celsius. The Japanese usually process the grain into brown rice first before storage. In Formosa (Taiwan), we store the rice right after it is harvested, and husk the rice later.

Before the automatic rice harvester was invented, farmers cut ripe rice plants with sickles and bundled them into large bales. Then a threshing machine was used to separate the rice grains from the stems. Next, the grains were dried in the sunlight for long-term storage. Nowadays, rice grains are mostly dried with huge rice dryers.

We put the harvested rice into this machine called a thresher. The machine can separate grains from stalks with its rotating roller.

Aren’t the golden rice grains beautiful? To obtain the rice that we see in markets, further processing such as milling is needed to remove the hulls after the rice is dried. We’ll see how this is done after this brief message. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to our program celebrating the cultivation of organic rice. Now Ms. Polly Hsu from Rice Castle, a rice museum in Formosa (Taiwan), will explain how rice is hulled following a drying period.

This is a rice huller. We put the newly harvested rice in it. It automatically removes the hulls from the rice grains, and produces brown rice. The machine also separates the brown rice and the hulls to two sides. The brown rice will be further milled through a rice polishing machine to produce white rice which every family eats. Of course, after the rice is milled, we have to make sure all the impurities are removed.

So we need this machine on the left called a stone separator. With vibration, small stones and impurities can be filtered out because of the weight difference, and that’s how we get pure white rice. The next machine on the left is the color sorter. It utilizes ultraviolet radiation to do the inspection.

If there are broken rice grains or some impurities, it immediately removes them with a jet of air to ensure that every grain of rice is of the highest quality. Rice used to be picked by hand, but nowadays, mechanical equipment is used. In Formosa (Taiwan), the rice selection is also done with a computer.

Brown rice, which is the result after removal of the hulls, is the most nutritious form of rice. If the outer layer of brown rice is removed, we get germ rice, which has the embryo and rice seed. If the embryo is also taken away, we get white rice. After milling, rice is traditionally packed in burlap bags of different sizes.

Nowadays vacuum packaging is used to preserve rice longer. The packaged rice is sent to supermarkets or exclusive grain shops for people to buy. Even on the Internet, one can purchase high-quality organic rice. Now we have our finished product. What are some tasty ways to prepare this gift from Heaven? One can make fragrant cooked rice or porridge. Nowadays, most people use a rice cooker or a multifunctional electric cooker to prepare rice, so there is no worry about burning it.

Rice noodles are quite popular in Asia, with Chinese, Aulacese (Vietnamese) and Thai rice noodles being quite famous. Rice can also be processed to make all kinds of other delicious dishes such as rice dumplings, steamed rice cakes, bowl rice cakes, and turnip cakes. Crispy popped rice is a favorite among the Chinese people.

Okay. Now behind me you can see a machine that is used to make puffed rice treats at our “Rice DIY (Do It Yourself) School”. Puffed rice is often made into sweets in traditional agricultural communities. Puffed rice is produced by heating rice under high pressure, and then it is mixed with maltose syrup to form the crispy rice cakes. It was a very popular snack in the agricultural communities. Its crispness and sweetness are just unforgettable.

To close, the organic vegan diet is truly our future and more and more people are adopting this lifestyle every day. With society’s encouragement, it is only a matter of time before all farmers begin growing organic crops like rice. Supreme Master Ching Hai has lauded farmers worldwide for their sincere and diligent work of love, namely producing wholesome food for our daily sustenance.

Everything is difficult, even just to eat, I tell you. It is difficult, right? You have to first earn money. And even not money. The farmer has to plant the food and it takes many months, sometimes many years to grow some fruits for us. And he has to even take care every day, he has to water it and then put fertilizer and do all kinds of things in order for the fruits to grow better. And then we can eat it, but it takes one second to finish the apple but it takes a lot of work to grow and to produce it.

May organic crops forever flourish so that we and all our lovely animal friends will be protected from harsh chemicals and our environment will become safer and cleaner. Our appreciation President Chen Shih-hsiung, Mr. Lin Nang-Fa, Mr. Yoshikazu Kawaguchi, and Ms. Polly Hsu for speaking to us about rice production process and its true beauty.

For more details on the following individuals/organizations, please visit their respective websites
President Chen Shih-hsiung
Yoshikazu Kawaguchi
Rice Castle

Thank you, esteemed viewers, for your presence today on our program. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment, after Noteworthy News. May the Providence forever guide us in our lives.