Farmer transplants rice seedlings by hand into flooded field

A farmer wearing shorts, shirt, and a straw hat bends over to transplant seedlings into the second of his two wet-rice field plots. The man's colorful reflection is visible forward and below him in the water that surrounds the planted seedlings.The farmer pulls apart individual rice plants from larger clumps and then thrusts each wispy plant into a well-spaced spot in the watery field. Each plant is placed at least a foot away from its neighbor, all set out in straight lines. This plot appears to be about 10 x 30 feet in size, with a slightly curved shape.Bali is one of the few areas in Southeast Asia where men alone are assigned the job of transplanting rice. This task is usually done by couples or only by women, who are symbolically associated with control over grain and human fertility.