We owe everything we eat to the long hard toil of farmers and peasants (or farm workers) in the fields, and of course to the sun, the earth and the rain that make it possible for rice and other crops to grow. But those who till the soil are usually the poorest in a poor country. Often they don’t get their fair share of the harvest, especially if they work for a selfish landlord. Many of them lose their crops to pests, storms and floods, just when they are about to harvest. “Planting rice is never fun, bent from morn till the set of sun,” goes an old Filipino folk song.
