Traditional Rice Farming

Rice is an essential part of every meal in South East Asia. We've seen rice paddies in each country we visited. Sometimes people we met would describe how much work it is to farm rice, or we'd visit a rice paddy at various stages of productions, but we still had a lot to learn.

So, we spent the morning at an organic rice farm called The Living Land Farm, for an immersive experience in traditional rice farming. Here, we were walked through the 14-step process of rice farming, which included sorting good seed from bad, planting seeds, replanting seedlings, plowing fields with a buffalo, learning how rice is harvested, threshed, processed into flour and noodles, and steamed the traditional Laos way.

Our guide was highly knowledgeable and full of joy.

We also enjoyed fresh sugarcane juice that we helped to squeeze from the plant using a traditional tool made by an elder who used to farm rice on these lands. He is mostly retired now, and delighted the visitors by making intricate tiny animals out of bamboo strips.

For many meals afterwards, we would look down at our food and be amazed, thinking about how much work goes into each mouthful of rice.Read more