The long awaited rice harvest is upon us today. Work has started and I made a quick drop by to show you how our work is progressing. Having showed us the sharp sickles I have purchased earlier, I can tell you that those sickles are really paying off. They are so sharp that within just 3hrs of work we have gathered bundles of the rice in different sections of the farm.

The activities we do here is to first cut the rice and gather them in separate bundle. The field has been divided into different portions since the the rice was not all planted on thesame day. Maturing does not equally happen at thesame time, hence we harvest in parts according to the portions that are ripe.

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Comparing rice transplanting and Cutting at harvest like this, I just don't know which one to pick as one with the easiest of labour. Everything that has to do with growing rice is so much labour.

For this harvest you have to keep your waist down all through the day cutting rice that why we develop back ache after the days work

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I have seen pictures of from simple to complex heavy duty rice harvesting machines on the internet but they are the machines used in field for large scale harvest of rice that must have been planted for commercial purpose, individual do not keep heavy duty machines
They are not common in the country and I have not seen any either. Despite the fact that alot of Nigerians grow rice, all the work is done manually. Local farmers may not be able to purchase heavy duty machines but if the government can provide an avenue where we can lease this machines on working days to ease the stress it is possible that many farmers will grow larger quantity of rice to be sold in the market thereby reducing the scarcity of food been experienced everytime.
The price of food and #inflation rate will directly experience a reduction too.

Gleaning and stacking of the rice is done in 1-2days while the third day is meant for threshing the rice over drums. Cleaning is also done this day to remove every debri before we take the clean grains home.

A few tips for working in rice field

• Rice hauls are very itchy and you may have your body properly covered up to avoid itching

• Ensure to go along with enough bottle of water, since the weather is now very dry and the tendency to get thirsty increases. The sun is usually hot as well making work very uncomfortable.

• You might want to start work very early at dawn and quit before the sun reaches a very hot afternoon temperature.