Of Rice and Men

Yuk Gwang Ki kneels in the yellow stubble of his newly harvested rice field and lovingly picks up a stray stalk of rice. Every day since he was a young boy, Yuk, now 53, has come to this paddy in Jangsu province, South Korea, to plant, to tend the fragile seedlings and to bring in the crops. Yuk's family has tilled this tiny plot for 400 years, and while it's increasingly difficult to earn a living from the land, Yuk would be happy knowing his family could go on with the work for 400 more. "The purpose of farming is not...