PHOTO OF THE WEEK:

THE LIGHT COSTS OF OLD 

In this supposedly modern age, there are still farmers who take to the manual method of separating rice grains from the chaff, like this farmer in Rang-ayan village, Paniqui town, Tarlac (about three hours north of Manila). It should be much easier for him to do it by machine, but he would have to rent it for at least P1,000 ($17.86 based on a $1:P56 exchange rate) a day. That is easily more than twice what a rice farmer normally earns from his produce if his income were to be divided by his days of work. With the poverty that Philippine peasants are mired in, they usually prefer the backward but reliable and affordable panggiik (rice thresher) to expensive modernity.

 Photo by Aubrey Sta. Cruz Makilan/BULATLAT.COM

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