🇯🇵SAIGOU🇯🇵郷田剛士🇯🇵@oidonhagouda

In Ibaraki, metal water valves used to irrigate rice paddies are being stolen by the hundreds. This year alone, more than 1,600 have already disappeared. The rice plants are beginning to form ears. Without water, the crop fails. Farmers are now replacing the metal valves with plastic ones. Not because plastic is better — but because the metal ones keep vanishing. A piece of basic infrastructure that keeps the fields alive is being treated as scrap. The harvest does not wait for the valves to be replaced.