Rice Cultivators of Ceylon  is a painting by Sri Lankan artist Senaka Senanayake, who completed the artwork at only 13 years old. The painting shows peasants at work in a rice field in Ceylon, modern day Sri Lanka, with some aspects of the various stages of cultivation – ploughing, sowing, transplanting, harvesting and threshing. The background features some homes of the villagers and barns (called “bissas”), while the entire scene is set within the movement of an irrigation canal. 
 
Sri Lanka’s ancient heritage built was on rice production and flourished by means of complex, ingenious and extensive irrigation works which predominated over wide areas. The painting symbolizes the efforts of a developing country trying to raise its standards of living. 

The Permanent Representative of Ceylon to the United Nations, Merenna Francis de Silva Jayaratne, presented the gift on December 16, 1965 on behalf of the Ceylonese Government. Secretary-General U Thant accepted the gift on behalf of the United Nations. 
 
At the ceremony U Thant stated that the gift “is an inspiring example of how much the young have to offer us /…/ [Senanayake] has painted a harvest scene of a different and simpler kind than the one which we take part in here each Fall, when the General Assembly gathers to reap the year’s crop of international problems, and it will, I know, encourage us as we go about our work.”