Farmers in the fields of Vietnam

Rice is at the centre of Vietnamese farming, and for much of the countryside the year is still organised around planting and harvest. Vietnam is one of the world's major rice exporters, but a great deal of the work is still done by hand, on small family plots.

The first photograph shows transplanting. Seedlings are first grown densely in a nursery bed, then pulled up in bundles and set out by hand, one clump at a time, in flooded fields. Seen from a distance, a line of people moving backwards across the water is one of the most recognisable scenes of rural Vietnam; up close, it is bent-backed, muddy work.

The next frames show farmers in nón lá, the conical leaf hat, working in green fields and harvesting. The hat is not a costume here but a tool: light, cheap, wide enough to keep off both sun and rain, and easy to use as a fan or a basket when needed.

The gallery ends on the terraces themselves, the landscape shaped over generations by exactly this kind of labour.

---

Photos: dangquangn, pb29, minh82bn on Pixabay, used under the Pixabay Content License. These are not my photographs.