According to a tradition of the Black Thai ethnic group, people must have a jar of rice beans to make sticky rice cakes (banh chung), which are offered to their ancestors for the Lunar New Year in order to pray for good fortune. Now that rice bean seeds have been supplied by the Li-chăn project, villagers don't need to buy more for the Lunar New Year.
The photo shows Ms. Quàng Thị Thuấn’s small rice bean farm intercropped with peanuts. Previously she planted corn on this land, but the soil had deteriorated through erosion. The following sugarcane cultivation failed, and now they are planting rice bean to improve the soil quality. Legumes make the soil porous and rich in nutrients, while their stems are protein-rich fodder for livestock and poultry.
Narrator: Lường Văn Yêu (Thai ethnicity, 46 years old) and Quàng Thị Thuấn (Thai ethnicity, 31 years old)
Photographer: Quàng Thị Thuấn (Thai ethnicity, 31 years old)