Rice is easily available in every stores. Be it an Indian or any place around the world. It is one of the frequent used food item. The journey of rice from farming field to the store is a long one. Our most loved food item, Rice reaches to the stores after some hard work put in by the farmers. When it comes to farming, people assume mere cutting of the harvest and then separation of the paddys. But noone ever bother or think about the effort that were involved in its production. After living in the village since last few years, I able to learn the truth behind the hard work.
From preparation of the paddys sapling to sowing. It teaches us a lot of lesson of patience of hard work. The farming process begun with sowing the seeds. As I shared earlier, a small portion on the fields were ploughed and the seeds were scattered. Then manually the spil were covered covered it to avoid any loss. Then the farmer wait for the rain to water tyese seeds. Adequate rain and waiting for month results in germination of seeds into sapling. Once the sapling grows to approx a feet in size, the farmer eyes for its plantation in their respective field.
Rain plays an important role in the Rice plantation. We do not have any other source of water for farming. Rain is vital for farming because it naturally delivers water, soil nutrients, and moisture needed for crops to grow. Without it, plants cannot survive. Free rainwater reduces the need for expensive pumps, electricity, and man made irrigation systems. Once we have the adequate rainfall and the farming field is filled up with rain water, we ploughed the field and puddled it with the tractor. After that the all new fresh grown rice sapling is ready for the next major step of transplanting. It involves, turning the soil and mix it with water to create soft mud. Making the field flat so water stays at the same depth everywhere. This is done using tractor and some tough task that makes any farmer dirtier.
Here we have two fields with two different stages of fuled maintenance. While the front one is yet to ploughed and levelled, the farmer one is ready for transplanting. It is well leveled up and mud is ready for sowing the plants. Before the transplanting, it requires to remove the sapling from their bed. It is completelly a manual process, where few person carefully pluck them from soil and make a bunch of it. This is done prior to levelling the field. Tye plucking require to remove the sapling with the original roots to avoid wastage. Sometime entire day is spent on removing the sapling. The farmer give due care for the removal to avoid wastage. These are the same sapling that will grow into paddy After transplanting in the fields.
I knew the pain in removing these. I was involved into it and it takes a lot of effort that strained my waist. This just begining of the tough job. The plantation of these sapling asks for further effort. Which are again done manually. Seeing and getting involved in all these activity, I genuinely belive that farming is like nurturing the kids at home. A little distraction may spoil every effort. The more we maintain the patience, the better the outcome is. Farming is a patience game because nature cannot be rushed, requiring months of daily care, resilience against unpredictable weather, and long term waiting before a single seed yields a harvest. Before reaching the yield, the farmer needs to make sure that the water does bot exceeds a particular level. Excess water may too cause crop damages.
I doubt ever anyone wonder about the physical effort involves in farming. Despite this every year the farmer routine remain same. They hope to get a better yeild through, deep seated resilience and high tolerance. We should salute to these farmer as their efrort allows us to feed ourself properly.
In good faith - Peace!!
