page_title: Paddy field
section_title: Indonesia
hierarchical_section_title: Paddy field / Culture / Indonesia
caption_attribution_description: English: Water buffalo ploughing rice fields near Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia.
context_page_description: A paddy field is a flooded field of arable land used for growing semiaquatic crops, most notably rice and taro. It originates from the Neolithic rice-farming cultures of the Yangtze River basin in southern China, associated with pre-Austronesian and Hmong-Mien cultures. It was spread in prehistoric times by the Austronesian expansion to Island Southeast Asia, Southeast Asia including Northeastern India, Madagascar, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. The technology was also acquired by other cultures in mainland Asia for rice farming, spreading to East Asia, Mainland Southeast Asia, and South Asia.
  Fields can be built into steep hillsides as terraces and adjacent to depressed or steeply sloped features such as rivers or marshes. They can require a great deal of labor and materials to create and need large quantities of water for irrigation. Oxen and water buffalo, adapted for life in wetlands, are important working animals used extensively in paddy field farming.
  Paddy-field farming remains the dominant form of growing rice in modern times.
context_section_description: Prime Javanese paddy yields roughly 6 metric tons of unmilled rice (2.5 metric tons of milled rice) per hectare.  When irrigation is available, rice farmers typically plant Green Revolution rice varieties allowing three growing seasons per year.  Since fertilizer and pesticide are relatively expensive inputs, farmers typically plant seeds in a very small plot.  Three weeks following germination, the 15-20 centimetre (6–8 in) stalks are picked and replanted at greater separation, in a backbreaking manual procedure.
  Rice harvesting in Central Java is often performed not by owners or sharecroppers of paddy, but rather by itinerant middlemen, whose small firms specialize in harvesting, transport, milling, and distribution to markets.
  The fertile volcanic soil of much of the Indonesian archipelago—and particularly the islands of Java and Bali—has made rice a central dietary staple.  Steep terrain on Bali resulted in an intricate cooperation systems, locally called subak, to manage water storage and drainage for rice terraces.
caption: Water buffalos were formerly used to plough muddy paddy fields in Indonesia although the use of mechanised methods, such as small powered ploughs, has become much more common in recent years.
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