A few thoughts about rice in Bali

A lot of life in Bali revolves around rice.  It's the staple food, part of most meals.  And much of the available land is dedicated to growing rice.

These are rice pancakes, with fresh coconut and palm sugar on top.  Yum!

Rice is started in small dense nurseries

which are then planted by hand in rows in watery fields.

The tiered pools of the early rice fields reflect the sky.

The water for each community's fields is divided by agreement, and distributed through a series of branching waterways called the "subak,"

which is also the name of a meeting of farmers to make joint decisions about the system.

Most rice cultivation remains incredibly labor-intensive.

As it approaches harvest, the rice is a beautiful golden color.

After a harvest, you can feed your flock of ducks by turning them into the harvested fields to find the stray bits.

Some of the threshing is done by machine, but a lot of the rice is still threshed by hand.

In the harvest season, you see rice being dried anywhere flat (sometimes on tarps in a driveway or the street).

Of course, it's not a country that lacks technology.  Cars, motorbikes and cell phones are everywhere.  But traditional rice farming remains a central part of life and culture here as well as an enormous and beautiful part of the visual landscape.