Sekinchan@rice-bowl area of Selangor, Malaysia.

 

Rice is one of the leading food crops of the world and also one of the staple food for most of the countries in Asia. It is the basic ingredient of every meal in almost every Asian household.

Today, this unique grain helps sustain two-thirds of the world's population. It provides 20% (that’s one fifth) of the world’s dietary energy supply and more than 50 percent of the world's population is dependent upon rice for 80 percent of its diet.

 

Sekinchan (which literally means “village suitable for plantation” in Chinese) is a little town in the middle of the main rice-bowl area of Selangor, in the Sabak Bernam district. The other paddy producing states like Kedah, dubbed the 'Rice Bowl of Malaysia', Penang, Perak, Kelantan and Terengganu have recorded an average of only four metric tonnes per hectare, which is also the national average.

 

The Sekinchan, located about 1.5 hours from Klang where one have to drive north on the trunk road, passing towns like Kapar and Kuala Selangor before reaching Sekinchan. Sekinchan boasts six main attractions —­ mangoes, migratory birds, orchards, padi (Rice)  fields, seafood, and swiftlet nests. Sekinchan, among the leading paddy growing areas in Selangor, produces up to 13 metric tonnes of paddy per hectare.

 

These shows the paddy fields. From having some greens left, till the greens gradually faded, then become a total brown.

 

 

 

The combine harvester loading the harvest right into a truck.

 

Back in the old days, we had to put the harvest into gunny sacks, and transportation was manual, be it by man or buffalo.

I saw a huge crowd of swiftlet flying just around the paddy harvesting machine and I wonder what phenomena is this?

 

After I asked the paddy field owner, he told me that there were many small insects which transforming from a water creatures into airborne insects by paddy harvesting machine and attract those swiftlets.

The owner of the paddy field during my visit. A kind old man and his two hardworking workers...

 

After all the fields have been harvested. Normally, field burning is the next thing to be done by the farmers, to prepare for another new season. Anyway, I'm concern on the environmental issue from the traditional way they manage the after harvesting paddy field....

 

 

Apart from the paddy field, Sekinchan is actually a fisherman’s town as well. Part of the town is located at the river estuary and this is where a lot of action take place. unfortunately, I have yet to have the chance to get into this part of town. Maybe in the future…