The terminal ward on the seventh floor of Sacramento General Hospital.
The machine sounds ringing at regular intervals inside the hospital room made Jacob’s heart sink, beat by beat. On the small table beside the bed, a cup of water and a family photo were neatly set down.
The man lying in the bed was Lucas Miller. Jacob’s father, in the final stages of pancreatic cancer. Perhaps because he was on painkillers, his voice was weak, but his expression was clear. Jacob sat in the chair and took his father’s hand.
“Son.”
“Yes, Father.”
“How’s your mother?”
“...She tries not to act sad in front of me.”
“That’s because she’s a strong woman. You need to meet a strong woman too. A farmer’s wife has to be strong.”
“Yes. I’ll make sure I meet a woman like that.”
Lucas, short of breath, drew in a few labored breaths before opening his mouth again.
“The farm... you have to protect it.”
Jacob wrapped his father’s hand a little tighter and, instead of answering, nodded deeply. His father steadied his breathing, then continued slowly.
“The farm... isn’t just a place where we earn money to put food on the table. It’s our family’s roots. Your grandfather... and even before him, it was always that way.”
“I know.”
“Remember this. The foundation of our family is agriculture.”
A brief fit of coughing followed. Jacob picked up the cup and gave him water, a little at a time. Lucas smoothed out the crease between his brows and looked Jacob straight in the eye.
“You have that friend... the one who cured the disease and pests.”
“Brian.”
“Yes. That boy may be right... or he may not. But whether you follow him... or take a different path... the choice is yours.”
“......”
“Choices come with responsibility. Don’t forget that.”
Jacob lowered his head. A single hot drop fell onto the back of his hand. Jacob hurriedly wiped it away. Lucas moved his hand slightly and gently stroked the back of Jacob’s hand twice.
“Father... I’ll do it. I’ll protect Mom, and I’ll protect the farm too.”
“Yes.”
Lucas gave an almost imperceptible smile. He smiled with lips that had gone completely dry. It was the kind of face seen on people who had endured for a long time.
“Yes. Now go. I need to sleep some more.”
That evening, as Jacob left the hospital room, he caught a brief glimpse of his own face reflected in the corridor window. It looked unfamiliar. It was the same face as yesterday, but somehow it felt different.
Two days later, at Riverbend Rice Farm on the outskirts of Sacramento, Jacob was looking out over the wide winter fields. The combine had been put away in the storage shed, and the levees around the paddies had been fully maintained. In the cold air, there was a faint smell of earth.
“Brian!”
When I got out of the car and walked over, the massive Jacob approached me with a smile.
“You’re here.”
As I drew closer, I could sense an indescribable sadness in Jacob’s smile.
“Did something happen?”
“No... No. Let’s go.”
He seemed a little different from when we’d met at the end of the year, but I didn’t press him. When we entered the house, Maggie welcomed me with the same bright smile as before.
“Brian! Happy New Year~”
“Happy New Year to you too, ma’am.”
“You said you were going to talk business with Jacob? Please take good care of him.”
“Hahaha, of course.”
At that moment, Jacob stepped in.
“Mom, we may be friends, but Brian is someone who follows business rules strictly. You shouldn’t say that.”
I stared at Jacob in disbelief, since I had never shown him that side of me, and Maggie looked apologetic.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Please don’t take it that way.”
“What are you talking about? It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not... I heard everything from Armando, you know? He said you have a thoroughly business-minded approach.”
“Ah...”
That bastard... What the hell has he been saying about me?
“It’s okay. I understand. Honestly, I prefer that too. I don’t want to be a burden to anyone either.”
“No... You don’t have to go that far...”
“Let’s go to my room.”
When we went up to Jacob’s room, a typical American boy’s room appeared before me. A door with a basketball hoop attached, posters of American comics, and even a slightly sexy pinup of a woman.
The only things that stood out were the major textbooks on his desk. Fundamentals of Rice Crop Science, Sustainable Agriculture and the International Rice-Wheat System, Manual on Rice Cultivation, and the like.
“You didn’t just put these books here, did you?”
“What do you take me for? Take a look. My marks are in them.”
I flipped through the books, and just as Jacob had said, there were plenty of traces of study.
“Sit.”
When I sat in the desk chair, Jacob sat down on the bed. It bothered me to see him plop down on the bed while still wearing clothes he’d gone out in, but I didn’t say anything. That was the culture here. Naturally, he still had his shoes on inside the house.
“I talked with my father.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he’d respect my choice. He’s recognized me as the head of the family now.”
When I silently nodded, Jacob took a deep breath and spoke again.
“So I’ve decided. I want to receive consulting, like Chloe’s Harris Farm.”
“Do you know what the contract terms are?”
“I heard the general details from Chloe. Of course, I want to sign a contract. That’ll make things certain.”
“No, well... signing one is one thing, but... from Armando, it sounds like you heard I’m some kind of cold-blooded monster.”
“He said you’re extremely thorough. That if someone can’t separate business from personal matters, you won’t even see them as a person?”
“......”
“Like I said, I’m fine with it. I’ll say it again, I think that’s the right way too.”
He seemed to be under a very serious misunderstanding, but that wasn’t what mattered right now, so I changed the subject.
“Okay, got it. I’ll prepare the contract for now. We’ll proceed the same way as the contract I used with Chloe’s family, just changing the farm name.”
“Sounds good.”
“Then let’s say the contract is settled... What’s your main variety right now?”
Once the serious discussion began in earnest, Jacob straightened his back and spoke calmly.
“202.”
“M-202, huh...”
M-202 was a representative medium-grain rice developed by UC Davis. Its distinguishing trait was that it maintained Calrose quality while having excellent yield and quality stability. In Korea, medium-grain varieties would be things like Odae rice, Sindongjin, and Chucheong.
“Why?”
“Let’s change the variety. For Chloe’s family, changing varieties costs a lot of money, but with rice, it doesn’t. It’ll be worth trying. It probably won’t even cost ten thousand dollars, right? If you’re nervous, doing just 30% is fine too.”
“...What... are we changing it to?”
“Our school, the same one that developed 202, is planning to release 206 now.”
“Ah! I think I’ve heard of that. But I didn’t hear anything about when they’d release it.”
Of course he hadn’t. If you majored in agronomy or plant breeding at UC Davis, you might get a chance to see new variety test plots in a professor’s lab or experimental field, or hear about them, but decisions at the policy and association level were shared through professors, researchers, the CCRRF—the California Rice Research Foundation, a nonprofit rice farmers’ cooperative—and industry partners.
M-206 was a variety that underwent trial cultivation from 2003 to 2004 and was approved for release in 2005. Afterward, until M-211 came out in 2020, it became Sacramento’s main variety.
“Then it must have some improvements over 202, right?”
“Right. They say it has good quality by default and a shorter growing period than 202. You know this by now, but if the growing period is shorter, you can avoid the timing of cold damage or still harvest even if you plant late, so it gives farms much more stability.”
“I know. And?”
“They also say it’s resistant to lodging. Since it’s advantageous for machine harvesting, in the end, the yield per acre is expected to be much higher than 202.”
It was all information I already knew, but since in reality the variety had not yet been released, I deliberately phrased it as if I’d heard it from someone else.
“Ahh... Then there’s no reason not to switch, is there?”
“If you trust our school?”
“Hmm... Good. Then this year, I’ll try it on 50%. Last year’s harvest was decent, so if just 50% comes out properly, I think we can hang on a bit even if something goes wrong.”
“Good. Don’t worry. Later on, let’s add premium varieties too, so you can sell to sushi restaurants. And there’s something you need to do right away this winter.”
“What is it?”
“Laser Land Leveling.”
“What?”
At Jacob’s reaction, as if he was hearing it for the first time, I explained slowly.
“If you look closely at a paddy, some areas are deep and some are shallow. You know that, right?”
“Uh...”
“When that happens, for starters, you have to use a lot of water. Did you know? Rice grows at different speeds depending on water depth and soil moisture conditions.”
“I think I’ve heard that.”
“Right. In shallow areas, the soil dries quickly and the temperature rises, so heading—the point just before the rice flowers bloom, when the panicle emerges—and grain filling/ripening—the period when the rice grains fill out, gain weight, and become translucent—progress quickly. In deep areas, it’s always cool and the roots lack oxygen, so growth is delayed.”
“I remember hearing that from a professor.”
Seeing him nod with sparkling eyes, it seemed he really did know.
“Good. So you didn’t sleep through class after all. And there’s also the problem that fertilizers and herbicides spread unevenly depending on where the water is shallow or deep.”
“Ah! That makes sense.”
“There’s the weed problem too. If the water is deep, weeds don’t come up, but if it’s shallow or absent, they explode. You have a lot of cases like that in your paddies, don’t you?”
At my question, Jacob nodded frantically.
“Yeah, exactly.”
“Because of that, simply leveling the land will make the rice quality more uniform and help suppress weeds. On top of that, water usage will drop significantly, and yield should increase too. As a bonus, you won’t need to adjust the water as often, so you’ll save on labor costs as well.”
With an expression as if he had achieved great enlightenment, Jacob asked,
“Why didn’t I know this?”
“You weren’t interested. You were just doing things the way they’d always been done. If you go to the agricultural extension office and say you want to do laser leveling, they’ll probably ask how you came up with such a commendable idea.”
“Ah... But how do you do it?”
“You’ll understand when you see it. You scan the whole paddy with GPS or a laser transmitter and receiver, then the scraper attached behind the tractor receives the laser signal and automatically adjusts its height. It cuts away soil from the high spots and fills in the low spots, making the entire surface almost the same height.”
“Oh—That’s pretty amazing.”
“And one more thing. You need to make observation tubes for AWD—Alternate Wetting & Drying. I’ll draw up separate plans for this. You can make them yourself, or take the plans to a company and ask them to make them.”
“Huh? Observation tubes? What are those?”
“The reason I talked about laser leveling earlier was precisely so we can use these AWD observation tubes. From now on, we’re going to adjust the water level in detail according to the growth stage.”
“Ooh—”
“Until now, your farming relied on intuition and the assumption that there wouldn’t be a drought. From now on, it’ll be farming based on accurate calculation and prediction. In short, you could call this the beginning of scientific farming.”
Jacob thumped the bed with both hands, radiating anticipation, and I waved my hand in the air because of the dust flying up.
“Stop, stop...”