Rice farming in Kenya

Just a few miles out of Embu, I stopped to take pictures of a woman harvesting rice. |I had never actually seen rice being grown or harvested except in Asian movies. I also chatted with a rice farmer and stopped at a mill. SO here it is: Rice is not grown in many places in Kenya. The best soil conditions and the sweetest rice come from an area around a town called Mwea, where I spent the night on a mattress so hard that my back hurt for 2 days. But beside that unpleasant night of no sleep, Mwea was an experience. The fields are first plow by tractor, which most farmers hire for their 2-4 acres. After that, a pair of oxen plow it again to mix the nutrients into the rich soil. Rice seedling, which are started in a nursery, are planted. Once the rice is mature, it is cut with a scythe. The women then use baskets to winnow the rice. When they throw it up in the air, the rice kernels separate from the stalks.After the rice is dried in the sun, it is taken to the mill which separates the husk from the rice. The husks and the stalks from the rice are made into animal feed. The rice is bagged and sold. In Mwea, there are dozens of people with small stalls selling rice. When I asked how they could all make a profit with so much competition, I was told that many of the merchants stay out all night, where they do a brisk business with the truck drivers passing by on the main road. Biking beside the rice paddies gave me a peaceful feeling. The paddies are dotted with white egrets, farmers plowing, women planting and harvesting. Unfortunately, the rice paddies only went for about a 10 mile stretch. In a short distance from Mwea, I reached a small,dry town where it had not rained in two years!