Since most rainfed lowlands depend on erratic rainfall, conditions are diverse and unpredictable. Understanding how farmers' practices help reduce risk and assure some production is essential to developing improved technologies for the rainfed lowlands. Most rainfed lowland rice farmers are poor and must cope with unstable yields and financial risks. They adapt their cropping practices to the complex risks, potentials, and problems they face. They typically grow traditional, photoperiod-sensitive cultivars and invest their labor instead of purchasing inputs.
Farmers bund the fields to store water.
They weed, may redistribute seedlings to ensure good crop stands, and usually harvest by hand. Suitable MVs and associated production technologies have been limited. Although new technology developed in the 1960s and 1970s focused on the irrigated sector, rainfed lowland rice farmers were not forgotten. Researchers have tried to produce new varieties and improved farming practices for nutrient management, crop establishment, on-farm water collection, and weed and pest control. These practices can potentially contribute to higher yields, especially in the favorable rainfed subecosystem.