What is more pleasurable than eating the food the woman we love prepares? How sweeter is it if she, too, helps produce our staple food? The woman-farmer in Quezon and Zamboanga del Norte is involved in more than half of the 51 farm activities from land preparation until selling of rice. Her counterpart in Pampanga, Agusan del Norte, Compostela Valley, Laguna, and Zamboanga del Sur does 3 to 6 segments of the farm work.

Labor, a price we have to pay for being humans, is engraved in her entirety. She spends two days more than the man in harvesting and about three days in drying the rice grain. The man, who is outnumbered 2% during planting season, devotes more time than the woman during land clearing, plowing, and harrowing.

The woman of rice, strong and determined, completes her day balancing farm work and domestic chores. On ordinary days, she invests an average of 7 hours; she works for 11 hours during planting and harvestings days.