Good morning steemians, hopefully, everything is in good health, I come from a simple family of farmers. I have lived in my village (Saweuk Village,Kutamakmur, North Aceh Regency) since I was a child. This area is famous for agriculture and because of this,both my parents worked as farmers. The farm life has brushed off on me so much so that I too love everything about farming and agriculture.

In the past, when I was a child, my father often invited me to accompany him to the fields. These fields produced enough food for us to eat and meet the needs of every day life.During these excursions my mother and father would pass on a lot of farming knowledge to me, which I still remember clearly.

For instance, when farming the rice fields, you need to follow strict procedures to ensure a good harvest. From my experience, the traditional way of cultivating fields in Aceh is as follows:

Typically, the villagers determine the day to plant rice by contacting their neighbors to see who can help with the planting process. They do this by going from house to house and asking if anyone can help or not.

At first the fields are flooded with water, then buffalo or cattle are used to plough the fields. More modern farmers use hand tractors to plough with. This step is repeated again to ensure that the land is fertile enough for the rice to grow in.

The next step is to level the soil and distribute the seeds. This is done by making a box or rectangular shape with the soil, which we then bury the seeds in. After this we wait 20 days for the rice to start growing.This is when the women farmers enter the fields and tie the rice up in bunches, while it is still rooted. Then we wait for it to be ready for harvesting.

After all the rice is planted we wait patiently for it to grow. During this time, the women maintain the fields by plucking out grass and other creeping plants that could stifle the growth of the rice. As the rice starts to ripen, the farmers install scarecrows and noise making tins into the fields so that birds and pests are scared off. Sometimes insect repellents are used too.

When the rice starts to turn yellow after about 100 days from planting, it is ready to beharvested. The rice is then cut by local villagers and piled for further harvesting.

The cut rice is left todry in the sun, but not for too long as it could rot or re-root itself. I usually pile up the crops to harvest again, so that I never have to buy new rice, since I have my own stock! The cut rice is then milled using a mill machine, which prepares it for cooking use.