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Hand harvesting ripe wheat
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Hand harvesting ripe wheat

I was struck as I watched the rice harvest in north Vietnam that everything was being done by manual labour using implements and techniques that have could have been seen centuries ago. In an ancient routine, the farmers first grabbed a handful of individual rice stalks, cut them with an old crescent knife and twisted them into bundles and lined them side by side in the paddy. The man then threshed the bundles by banging them into a wooden box to loosen the rice grains. Subsequently the grains were spread on cloth on the ground to dry. After the field was harvested, their water buffalos and ducks were let loose into the field to clean up the stalks and left over seeds. It was somehow very satisfying for me to see that some types of work have survived mostly unchanged for hundreds of years since they are so perfectly adapted to the environment.

In my travels, I also noticed that, recently in Japan and Indonesia, where are are large flat rice fields, the rice harvests on flat lands with bigger planted areas was done by what they called 'Chinese water buffalos' which were small harvesting machines from Japan. The use of the mechanical 'water buffalos' is entirely impractical on the small steep fields of the rice terraces, where traditional hand harvesting still occurs.

Note to God's child; if you had grown up in this culture you probably wouldn't have allergies, as it is well known that children in farming cultures (even in the west) have MUCH lower allergy levels than people growing up in cities. As I said in the previous paragraph the steep narrow rice terraces make the use of machines impractical, if not impossible.

rice harvestbundlesthreshingfarmerssustainable agriculturehand harvestingripe riceTa Van valleynorth Vietnam

From Ta Van valley

  • Sunrise with bird
  • Woman with the gold grillz
  • A portrait of our ship's captain on the tour ship in Ha Long Bay, the popular UNESCO World Heritage Site with many limestone karst islands in northern Vietnam.
  • Shinjuku at night
  • Matsumoto castle seen through the willows
  • Dusk in the islands
  • Torii gates
  • Dwarfed by the cliffs
  • Kayaking in Luon Cave
  • Crevices
  • Woman in a red dress
  • Beer delivery
  • Ha Long bay
  • Stop!!  Don't push!!!
  • Herding ducks
  • Hand harvesting ripe wheat
  • Tibetian macaque
  • Skyscrapers
  • Through the tunnel
  • Impish small boy
  • nelli

    on November 2, 2016

    OMG HARD WORK BUT BEAUTIFUL SHOT

  • James Clarke (jamri)

    on October 10, 2016

    Excellent image and great information on the very manual process required on the steep fields.

  • Rick Willis

    on October 9, 2016

    Excellent Info and Shot...

  • TinaMarie Gardner

    on October 9, 2016

    excellent capture

  • Lgood

    on October 8, 2016

    What a wonderful image of the harvest. Thank you for the details of how it's done. I agree that it's very nice that the "old ways" still survive.

  • fotoeffects

    on October 8, 2016

    Marvelous capture of the harvest! Such an interesting process!

  • arctangent

    on October 8, 2016

    Interesting content and lovely composition.

  • kjakes1

    on October 8, 2016

    Great shot of the farmers hard at work. And thank you for the insight into their interesting culture.

  • Byron Fair Photography

    on October 8, 2016

    Sometimes it's amazing to see photos like this. Very nicely captured.

  • God's Child

    on October 8, 2016

    My sinus/allergies would be a mess if I was surrounded by all of this wheat! I'm surprised that there are not machines in today's 21st century for harvesting rice? Just curious!
    10/8/2016

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