Rice planting in paddies

Terraced rice paddies, masterpieces of ancient engineering, have existed in China, the Philippines, and elsewhere for as long as two millennia. You don't have to be an expert to know that the building of these stepped paddies is no minor undertaking, done without the aid of machinery.

Rice-growing methods are almost as varied as the grain's geographical habitats. In the Western World, farmers use highly mechanized systems, but in most developing nations, rice farming remains extremely labor-intensive. The work is backbreaking and relentless, and in China, Japan and other Asian countries where farmers tend terraced paddies, it is also muddy.

Paddy rice is irrigated by water diverted from rivers and mountain streams into a complex system of canals and riverways developed and perfected through centuries of use. Terracing, which requires constant maintenance, allows water to flow continuously down through successive rice fields. Farmers usually plant rice seed in a seedbed, then transplant young plants into the paddies, which have about six inches of water at this stage. As the plants mature, cultivators allow the water level in the field to drop. By the time the plants reach full maturity, the ground is entirely dry, and farmers can easily harvest the rice.

Harvesters cut the ripe grain from the stalk and then, after it has dried, thresh it to separate the grains from the so-called rice straw. In Asia, oxen typically do the threshing by trampling the rice laid out before them. Milling then removes each grain's hull to reveal the part of the rice plant that eventually ends up in our mouths. Milling both the hull and bran layers of the kernel renders so-called white rice; brown rice retains the bran. After the harvest, farmers turn over the soil, readying the paddy for another season.

Chinese myth, tells of rice being a gift of animals rather than of gods. China had been visited by an especially severe period of floods. When the land had finally drained, people came down from the hills where they had taken refuge, only to discover that all the plants had been destroyed and there was little to eat. They survived through hunting, but it was very difficult, because animals were scarce. One day the people saw a dog coming across a field, and hanging on the dog's tail were bunches of long, yellow seeds. The people planted these seeds, rice grew, and hunger disappeared.

How, do farmers construct the rice terraces?
A casual glance might lead you to believe that farmers carve them into hillsides, using the dug-up rock to build the retaining walls and the excavated earth to level the terraces. Well, looks can be deceiving.

This is the building site for the new rice terrace. A good terrace site has a gentle slope, a year-round water source, and easy access to building materials. The location of some of these materials, gravel and topsoil, for example, should be uphill from the site, and the stones that will form the retaining wall should be close by.

The terrace builders lay down marking stone, so called because they will mark the boundary between the new terrace and the existing one. These stones, sometimes split from boulders manually and carried to the site by hand, will serve as the foundation for the terrace's retaining wall. Behind the stones the builders add a coarse fill.

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