1. The idea

Max is three. He speaks Indonesian and English, he loves anything with a screen, and he lives beside some of the last working rice terraces in Canggu. His dad had a dream: instead of the screens pulling Max indoors, they could become tools he carries outside.

We call it Rice & Robots. The project is simple and it will take years:

1. Listen. Walk the fields. Greet the farmers. Learn their names, their crops, their worries.
2. Learn. Study how rice is grown, sold and paid for. Write it down. Draw it. Photograph it.
3. Build. When Max is old enough, use software, AI agents and eventually robots to help the same farmers earn more and work less.

Nobody is pretending a three-year-old will write code this year. The point is that the relationships and the curiosity start now, while the tech skills catch up over the next decade.

2. Why here, why rice

Canggu's rice fields are part of Bali's subak system: a centuries-old cooperative way of sharing irrigation water among farmers, organised around water temples. UNESCO listed the subak landscape as World Heritage in 2012. It is one of the oldest working examples of farmers running shared infrastructure together.

Those same fields are disappearing fast under villas and cafes. The farmers who remain are often older, their children have left for tourism jobs, and the economics of a small plot are hard: input costs, middlemen, weather, water.

That makes this a real problem, not a toy one, and it is in walking distance of Max's front door. The people who can explain it best are the ones standing in the water.

3. How it works — three stages

4. Our farmer friends

One card per person. Added only with their permission. Photos are optional; names can be first names or nicknames.

5. Field notes

Newest first. Each entry: date, who we saw, what Max noticed (his words), one photo, one new word.

6. Questions Max asks

Kept exactly as he says them. Answered when we can. The unanswered ones are the project.

7. The dinner table

Once a season we invite a farmer family to eat at the house. Max helps set the table and asks one question he has prepared. We cook Indonesian food, not Western food. Children are welcome; the evening ends early because farmers start before dawn.

• First dinner target: before the end of 2026.
• Max's job: greet guests in Indonesian, hand out drinks, ask his question.
• Dad's job: listen more than talk. Write down what we learn afterwards.
• Guest book: every guest signs or draws in the Field Book.

8. The toolbox (someday)

Ideas collected now, built later. Ranked by how soon a farmer could benefit.

9. Letters

Each year Max writes (dictates, for now) to one person whose work he might one day build on. The first is David Friedberg: founder of The Climate Corporation, which used weather data to protect farmers, and now of The Production Board, which backs agriculture and food technology. We do not expect replies. The letters are a record of what Max understood at each age.

• 2026 — David Friedberg — read it — status: being written
• 2027 — ______

10. For grown-ups

This page is kept by Max's father, Nicholas Levenstein, in Canggu. The daily routine that replaces screen time with field time is here.

If you farm in Canggu and would like to be part of this, say hello when you see a small boy with a camera on the pematang. If you work in agtech and have one piece of advice for a child who wants to help rice farmers, we would love to add it to the Field Book.

The idea

Once a year, Max writes to one person whose work he might one day build on. At three, he dictates and Dad writes it down word for word. At eight, he will type it himself. At twelve, maybe he sends code.

We don't expect replies. The letters are a record of what Max understood about his neighbours at each age, and a habit of asking people who have done hard things how they did them.

The first letter: David Friedberg

David Friedberg founded The Climate Corporation, which started as weather insurance and grew into field-by-field data for farmers; Monsanto bought it in 2013. He now runs The Production Board, which builds and backs companies in agriculture, food and life sciences.

In other words, he has spent twenty years doing a grown-up version of what Max is starting on the pematang: using weather, data and software to help people who grow food. That makes him the right first name in the book.

Max's page

How we're writing it. Right after a morning walk, while the pictures are fresh, ten minutes at the breakfast table. Three questions only:

Dad's note (goes in the same envelope)

Every year

If a reply ever arrives, it gets read to Max, pasted into the Field Book, and posted here.

Principles

The screen swap

We aren't banning screens; we're giving them a job. Max gets his screen time because he went outside: "Camera first, then we look."

A field day

The ladder

Each step has a milestone a child can understand. Nothing gets skipped, and the tech arrives in order.

Kit

• Kid-proof digital camera on a lanyard (not a phone)
• A5 hardback notebook: the Field Book
• Crayons that live in the bag
• Small rubber boots, a hat, a big umbrella
• A sandpit or long tray for the garden subak
• Duplo, later a simple robot kit
• Later still: a small weather station
• For visits: fruit, and printed photos of the farmers themselves

Is it working?

• Max asks to go to the sawah without being prompted.
• A farmer greets him first.
• He tells someone at home about the fields without being asked.
• Passive screen time stays under forty minutes, and he doesn't fight the off switch.
• The Field Book has a page for most field days.

We review every three months. If it turns into a chore for him, we shrink it. The farmers will still be there.