Furuno duck family farm

One of the main issues with organic farming is weeding. The gaps between rows of crops can be easily weeded with tools and machines. However, since crops and weeds are adjacent to each other along the row of crops, it is necessary to devise a method to selectively weed only weeds without damaging the crops. For more than 40 years, I thought that mechanization intra row zone was impossible, and I silently weeded with a hoe and hands. It seems that small farmers around the world thought the same.
After considerable trial and error, I came up with a system for weeding which is 100 times less labor-intensive than the above manual method. I called it Hawking. It is a versatile technology that can be applied to most crops, including crops and vegetables and is inexpensive and can be handmade by anyone. I would like to convey the principle and practice of hawking to all the small farmers in the world who are struggling like I was. It can make a significant difference to so many producers of food and their families all over the world. Our purpose is to use your prize money and support for that purpose.

I started organic farming in 1978. I had a hard time weeding paddy field for 10 years. After a lot of trial and error, in 1990, I established the Integrated Duck and Rice Farming System. With ducks living in the paddy field, they naturally provide organic fertilizer and remove weeds. This system benefitted from the ducks swimming intra row zone, effectively weeding regardless of the space between the rows and the plants. Since then, it spread throughout Asia and then all over the world. Since 2003, we have been sowing in dry fields alongside farming duck paddy rice. I faced the difficult problem of weeding those same zone intra row, but in dry fields. After many failures, I made a machine from wire in 2016 which resolved this problem. My invention is effective not only for rice sown directly in dry fields, but also for wide variety of grains and vegetables. I named the tool Hawking. Hawking is not just a tool or machine technology, but a comprehensive weeding technology that considers crops, moisture, weeds and soil. Despite its immediate success, I am continually evolving and developing it in both principle and reality to meet different weeding needs.

 The weeds in the fields cultivated every year are annual grasses. The seeds are small and thin with weak, shallow roots that are just below the surface of the soil. Crops, on the other hand, generally have larger seeds and spread strong, deeper roots. I pay attention to the difference in the position and resilience of the crop roots. As you can see in the video, in Hawking, a thin spring steel L-shaped wire is held diagonally and pulled while piercing the ground at an acute angle. The tip of the wire swings up, down, left, right, back and forth around a depth of about 1 cm to remove, cut, and bury the initial weeds. Since the tip of the wire does not reach the root of the crop, the crop cannot be removed or damaged.

 In the long history of agriculture in the world, has there ever been the development and popularization of the principle and tools for weeding that are as simple, efficient, versatile and inexpensive as Hawking? The answer to this question was the same no matter where I asked it in the world. "Since ancient times, we have been weeding with sickles and by hand." Of course, in modern times, there are large scale weeders towed by tractors which work on large, mechanized farms. Hawking, however, for the first time allows small scale farmers to quickly and effectively weed directly between the plants rather than just around the borders. Moreover, it is an appropriate technology that can be handmade by small farmers and family farmers around the world. The most important thing in organic farming is technological self-sufficiency and ingenuity. I think the creativity and universality of Hawking fits this perfectly.

I used mass media (YouTube, "Modern Agriculture", Japan Organic Agriculture Research Association newspaper, newspapers, television, homepage, etc.). In addition, we actually visited overseas (USA, Uruguay, Argentina, Philippines, Cuba, Paraguay etc.) farmers, research institutes, universities, and academic societies to carry out dissemination activities.