you've got cơm on your face

Considering that rice (cơm) now forms a large part of my new Asian diet I thought it would be interesting to learn about its cultivation in Vietnam. A short coach ride out of central Hanoi took us to Hanoi's University of Agriculture where we would start our day with a lecture at the school of Agronomy. Feeling once again like a student we took up our stools and with our pens at the ready eagerly awaited for our professor, Cuong. Here are a few things we learnt about rice cultivation.

Vietnam produces on average, 37 million tons of rice annually. Although the Vientnamese diet is rich in rice contributing to 65% of daily calories, over recent years the amount of rice consumed has decreased. This is mainly due to people becoming more affluent and incorporating more meat and other - sometimes imported - products in their diets. However, with the increasing population the demand for rice continues to increase. Farming methods have had to adapt to meet this demand and due to new cropping methods farmers are able to harvest 3 times a year instead of twice. There have also been innovations in the paddy fields, nursery bedding, allows plants to be grown during cold and wet winters in Northern Vietnam and then transplanted into the fields. The Mekong area in the South benefits from all year round direct sewing as it does not suffer from harsh winters.

Having learnt the basics in our tutorial we were now ready to take to the fields. After a quick demonstration by Cuong we kicked off our sandals and descended into the squelching hot mud and began to plant the rice seeds. After about 10 minutes of bending down to plant the younger, shorter shoots I was starting to feel quite hot and bothered and very aware that i was nearly up to my knees in a mud bog. It has definitely given me great respect for the farmers who spend hours out in the fields in scorching sun to tend to their crops! Next we got to use sickles (hand-held curved knife tool) to hack down the mature rice crops in the adjacent field. I got quite into this stage thrashing around with my sickle until one of the guides removed the weapon from me, implying that maybe it was time for someone else to have a go.

We collected up our harvested bounty and hauled it back across the rice fields towards the field barn for threshing. Threshing is the process where the grains are separated from the straw usually by a mechanical machine which we got to test out. The straw is lightly turned by hand on top of a rotating drum machine that flings out the loose grains (rice sticking to sweaty face moment), which then have to be collected up. The final stage involves cleaning the grains to remove sand, stones and bits of straw and can be done either by a sifting machine or by hand using a big wicker tray tossing the rice up and down. I gave this stage a miss as knowing my luck I would have thrown rice over everyone or dropping the tray on the floor! We finished up back in the classroom with some Q&A's and then re-boarded our coach to take us home.