1 million beads of sweat for 1 grain of rice!

Wide green fields, rice terraces and laughing people, that's how I imagined to see the rice fields. I didn't find it. Neither in Cambodia nor in Sumatra. It's a hard job. Under the glowing sun here on Sumatra the delicate rice plants are prepared to be planted later on the actual rice fields. ----------------------------- The most important food in Asia is of course rice. The mud is ploughed twice to prepare the field for sowing. The water buffalo is the usual working tool. The small fields of the farmers do not allow the use of larger machines. Then the sowing takes place. The rice is sown very densely but only on a small area. This reduces losses caused by snails eating the sown grains. Such an area is to be seen on the picture with the farmer's wives. Later the rice has to be separated plant by plant, i.e. distributed over the entire field area. For this purpose the plants are freed from the mud which shakes off bacteria, among others.