After eluding for nearly three weeks, monsoon rains finally arrived in Nepal, bringing the much-needed respite to the farmers who had been anxiously waiting to head to their paddy farms.

As of last week, according to agriculture officials, paddy transplantation has been completed on a little over 40 percent of the fields. Halfway through the rainy season, farmers planted paddy on more than 550,000 hectares out of the 1.37 million hectares suitable for growing the country’s primary crop, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development.

Nepal marks national paddy plantation day at the end of June every year when a majority of the farmers are busy preparing and planting paddy saplings in the fields.

These photos show the liveliness and celebration by farmers as they stay busy to make sure the country is fed well next year.