In the beginning…

Despite the seeming drought plaguing many rice-growing regions in the Philippines, farmers in Banaue, Ifugao Province are just beginning to plant their fields.

The Ifugaos continue to practice traditional farming. They built the rice terraces by blanketing walls with stones and earth, which are designed to draw water from a main irrigation canal above the terrace clusters. Indigenous rice terracing technologies have been identified with the Ifugao’s rice terraces such as their knowledge of water irrigation, stonework, earthwork and terrace maintenance.

The rice terraces have shaped and preserved the Ifugao way of life.