Research work was carried out during the year 1989 in one dry-seeded rain fed paddies area in Amphoe Khao Chaison, Phatthalung Province, in order to analyses the weed problem in rice in a comprehensive way and to bring out and test the inner coherence of the existing cropping systems towards weed management. This allowed standard data and thresholds to be generated as reference in the area. The farmers were found to manage weeds mainly by land preparation until rice sowing. Analysis of available and necessary days for land preparation, as well as farmers' interviews, allowed to determine three types of cropping systems corresponding to low, medium and high ratio land,/work, leading to three deferent types of land preparation. The implementation of those cropping systems could be linked with the objectives of the farmers and the functioning of the agricultural production systems. Farmers appeared not to weed their paddies because of labor | constraints at the weeding period, mainly due to cattle breeding activities. In this context, weeds were found to be also an important source of forage for cattle during the rice cultivation. The collection of rice weeds as forage for cattle was found to range from 8 to 100% of the total paddies' weed infestation, but can not be considered as part of the farmers' weed control strategy, for it is made at random in anyone's paddies.