Rice is a staple food for millions across Southeast Asia, where intensive subsistence rice farming commonly occurs. Traditional rice cultivation involves flooding small rice paddies surrounded by earthen embankments for part of the year, creating a landscape of interconnected paddies, canals, and settlements on higher ground. Farmers plant seeds in nursery beds, transplant seedlings by hand during flooding, and gradually drain the paddies before harvesting rice and cultivating off-season crops, supported by fish, livestock, and trees throughout the farming system.

1. Rice Farming

6. Where in the world?

7. You can grow rice on hillsides . . .

8. . . . but this is a more common rice farming landscape.

12. Flooding the padis . . .

13. Preparing the padi for planting

14. Transplanting rice seedlings by hand . . .

15. Sharing the work at harvest time . . .

17. What’s good about buffaloes?