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FOLENS Seminar December 2010: Charcoal and Satoyama for Sustainable Agriculture and Environment (FOLENS International Symposium Excursion)
We visited FM Tsukui, one of the test farmland of TUAT, on December 6th. This is the joint excursion of the second international symposium of FOLENS and FOLENS seminar in December. The focuses were to understand charcoal production and its application, sustainable environment, agriculture and society of “Satoyama” area in Japan and consider similar issues in Asia and Africa regions. Dr. Oikawa, in Department of International Environmental and Agricultural Science (IEAS), kindly instructed how to produce and apply rice husk charcoal from the local biomass resources (photo). The demonstration and instruction was held together with foreign trainees of “Rehabilitation of degraded lands in Asia and Africa” by JICA. Many of us especially overseas participants were very much interested in application to their agriculture and environment.
We had outdoor lunch together under the warm sunlight. Supporter students (IEAS) provided us tasty miso soup. Thank you very much.
We walked around FM Tsukui to see farmland for silkworm, vegetable and citrus production in the afternoon. Old local culture, topography, vegetation and forest management were topics during the walk (photo 3). Foreign participants from Asia and Africa also introduced similar and comparable culture in their country. The visit to FM Tsukui seemed to be interesting for everyone, as we expected, since it was not just a sightseeing tour. They gave us positive impressions such as “I learned nature and tradition of Japan, it is not only tall buildings and advanced technologies”, “I found common aspects within the general differences between hometown and Japan”, “I am more familiar to the friends” and so on. (HO)
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| Making rice husk charcoal at FM Tsukui (Instructor Dr. Oikawa is the right side person in center) | Afternoon session in the excursion. We walked around FM Tsukui. |