The Truth Behind the Paperwork

At long last, I have received the photos from one of my most exciting experiences here at IRRI! All of the interns were invited to an event that allowed us to experience planting rice and to better understand how the process of planting and cultivation works. As a reminder, IRRI is the International Rice Research Institute, and it their goal to share as much research as possible in order to make rice more accessible to the impoverished.

Even though the other interns focus on research and I focus on paperwork in our actual internship work, it is important to have an understanding of what it is we are working for in the first place. And I think that can be incredibly helpful with perspective. When I go through page after page of legal documents, it’s hard to remember that this is to deal with rice, and that we are doing this to improve the world.

The fact that IRRI is nonprofit and is actually doing this to improve the world is also humbling. I’m going through pages of legal documents, but these legal documents are there to make things better.

With that out of the way, let’s get into it!

The rice fields are like little mud pools. First, the ground is plowed (with a very deep plower, stepping in a paddy will go just below my knees), either with a carabao or a motorized tool. I preferred the tool, personally, because the carabao was kind of just walking and I did not feel as though I had much control. I was fortunate to get pictures of both:

As for planting, you could either do it the hand way or the machine. By hand, you would get this grid maker, and make the mud into grids such that you could properly plant all the seedlings (all mine fell over, and I couldn’t see the grid. I wouldn’t make it as a farmer). Or, you could skip the grid step and use a machine that could plant the seedlings for you. I have no idea how that thing managed to plant them without hurting them, whoever invented that thing is a genius. The picture shows me with the grids.

Lastly, there was a device (not a machine, it was like plastic containers that had holes and a wheel system) that let seeds fall out. Seeds had to be planted in one of two ways, either on a bed made in a spare portion of field, and then harvested in 24 days ish? And by harvest I mean taking the seedlings and planting them separately (with the before mentioned methods. The second method was to grow them at home, but they could only take 12 days, because at home they would not have nearly as nutritious dirt (the ones we saw were grown from paper towels). If too late, they would wilt. If too early in the field, they wouldn’t be strong enough to survive being pulled out of the dirt. This is a group photo with everyone there as well as seedlings that had been grown from home or a lab.

As for the experience itself, it was pretty fun. We were in the sun for four hours, though it was just short enough that I wasn’t burned. I could feel the toasting beginning, but it did not come to fruition. I was covered in mud, and I ended up holding the hand of the girl in my group the whole time such that we didn’t slip. It was pretty cool, made us feel like close friends despite having met minutes before. I ended up with no fewer than nine bug bites, but overall, I think the experience was more than worth it.

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