From this very spot the traces of what was once a terraced rice paddy come into view.

Let’s take a look at the history of agriculture in Chiburijima. At first, farmers cultivated the land manually with hoes until they began to use cows instead. They then made this more efficient with the development of stock farms. There were few rice paddies back then, and rice was precious, eaten only on New Year’s day. In fact, until the end of the Taishō Period (1926), the main portion of a meal in Chiburijima constituted not of rice, but barley and chestnuts.

Advancements in farming tools enabled people to create more rice paddies, which at one point stretched up to 27 hectares in total. However, in 1973, the national government began measures to decrease rice production. Coupled with devastating rain in 1977, these measures shrunk the area for rice production to a mere 2 hectares.

There were still some farmers who tried to maintain the rice paddies nevertheless. Yet, with growing populations of sparrows that feed on rice, harvesting rice became impossible. This is how rice paddies eventually disappeared from Chiburijima.