A single grain of rice.

When rice is your staple diet, eaten twice a day 365 days a year then growing, caring, harvesting and storing are about the most important tasks your will do all year.

Planting in June involves the whole community of woman often for several days. Stepping back in a long line they plant one at a time the little shoots that have been nurtured nearby.

Then after several months of caring which includes the management of water to each of the terraces one at a time cutting takes place in October. This again is by hand, great bunches are left in the open ground to dry.

After a week of drying, in villages all around the country threshing takes place using whatever animals are available.

Then after further drying in the warm autumn sunshine
the rice is stored in the large hand made pots with secure lid. As the winter progresses a hole is made at the bottom of each pot in turn and rice retrieved for the family meal.