Beef shipments were banned after cattle were found to have eaten contaminated rice straw.
Five hundred kilometers to the south, Iwate prefecture's farmers are bringing in bundles of rice straw from the miniature fields nestling in valleys.
Handmade from the tough bark of the Tara Wing-Celtis or Blue Sandalwood tree and rice straw, Xuan paper is known for its strong, smooth surface, its ability to absorb water and moisten ink, and fold repeatedly without breaking.
Rice and Straw landed at the Baghdad airport Sunday morning during a heavy rainstorm.
Both Rice and Straw said that they came with very strong messages from Washington and London.
It recommends they use rice and wheat straw for mulch instead of burning it, rotate their crops, use a range of different seeds, manure their fields, and so on.
Traveling with British foreign secretary Jack Straw, Rice arrived in the middle of an overnight thunderstorm.
Rice said she and Straw brought messages from Washington and London directly appealing to Iraqi politicians to quickly form a government.
It followed a visit by Straw to Rice's home state of Alabama in October, where she gave him a high-profile taste of life in the Deep South.
He will say Jack Straw invited Ms Rice despite opposition to her arrival from anti-war in Iraq campaigners.
BBC: NEWS | UK | England | Lancashire | Rice's visit 'a source of light'
"It's my favorite thing, I learned on my first trip here, " Rice told reporters, taking a sip from a bendy straw, according to CNN colleague Hala Gorani, who has a sharp eye for detail.
CNN: Traveling with Bush: Bling, strawberry juice and goat brains?
During a stop in Blackburn, Straw summoned up his Beatles trivia to tell Rice that Lennon -- who was murdered in New York by a deranged fan in 1980 -- penned those words after reading a story in the Daily Mail newspaper.
Rice was accompanied by her UK counterpart, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who is a local member of Parliament.
It's Jack Straw's third visit to Iraq this year, while Rice was last in the country in November.
Rice warned against a political vacuum, as did her traveling companion, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
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