Rice Crisis

'In 2005 China, India and Indonesia were the world’s top producers of rice while the three largest exporters were Thailand, Vietnam and the United States. The first two of these have grown rice from time immemorial but cultivation in the States began in 1694 in South Carolina using slave labour familiar with the crop from West Africa. Since the 1800s rice has been an important commercial crop in Arkansas, Louisiana and East Texas, some utilizing immigrant Chinese labour. Today more than 100 varieties of rice are grown in six States and in 2006 the crop was valued at $ 1.88 billion - about half of which was exported.' ______________________________

by A.C.B. Pethiyagoda

(May 11, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Rice or rather its price and availability have been the hot topic among most middle and lower income groups during the last few weeks. The Government has been blundering its way trying to come to grips with a frightening spectre of food shortages – no wonder when it is ‘scared of taking on the Polonnaruwa rice Mafia’ (as one newspaper called them) the biggest rice millers in the country to whom cash in hand is more important than millions going to bed on empty stomachs. Our politicians just cannot foresee emerging basic problems, in this case the availability of our staple food at an affordable price. Japan, for instance, one of the most industrialized countries having ample financial resources to import all its rice, its staple food, remains near self sufficiency at all times; even otherwise unutilized city building blocks are cultivated before building operations commence !

In this country paddy cultivation has held a very prominent place in the rural scene for centuries. Even as late as the 1930s its importance socially, culturally and economically was most significant. Cultivation commenced each season at an auspicious time with elders in the village gathering in a spirit of cooperation and togetherness. The writer’s grandfather, himself clad in a white sleeved gauze banian and sarong, led his ande karayas (tenant cultivators) to the nearby bomaluwa (bo tree and shrine) offered flowers and lit oil lamps as the village priest lead the prayers.

With grandfather ploughing the first furrow both Yala and Maha, all able bodied men in the village followed. At mid day a huge Kurini bath pettiya (round woven cane box of rice and vegetable curries wrapped separately in plantain leaf) was brought to the field by the women folk and served to the men on plantain leaves placed on small vatties (reed mats). This meal is called the ambula in some parts of the country.

When ploughing of one yaya (a long stretch of paddy field) after another was completed, often covering a period of a few days, the furrows smoothened and water let in to flood the fields, seed paddy from the previous harvest was sown on a small portion of the field until the seedlings were ready for transplanting in the liayddas (single plots) demarcated by niyaras (foot paths). This operation was carried out by the women folk of the anda karayas often singing goyam kavi (songs related to paddy cultivation).

The next major operations, harvesting and threshing are carried out with religious observances being strictly followed in the kamatha (threshing floor). Even talk is limited to essentials and guarded until the batha maneema (harvested paddy measured and divided) between the land owner and his cultivators. The next step is to bag the paddy and carry it to the atuwa (storeroom for paddy) in the landowners’ house. The atuwa is normally a room sized sturdy wooden box like structure about six or seven feet above floor level in the wetter parts of the country. In drier areas paddy is stored in conical structures of wattle and daub with a straw thatched roof called wee bissa which is situated close to the house.

In homes of the wealthier folk there was a wee kotana maduwa (hall for paddy pounding) when hulling machines were yet to come. A special feature of this area was that a huge flat rock had been embedded in the floor on which poundings was carried out saving the floor and walls from damage.

Hired labour was hardly ever engaged for any of these activities as all cultivators helped each other from the first to the last. Also in those times artificial fertilizer was not used – the burnt stubble from the previous crop, buffalo manure, leaf and immature branches from leguminous trees such as dadap and gliricidias provided the required nutrient.

Until the passage of the Paddy Lands Act No. 1 of 1958 the Ande cultivator and landlord shared the harvest in equal proportions. After the Act cultivators were entitled to three quarters of the harvest and the landlord the balance. This was fair where the absentee landlord took no part in cultivation or in the social life of the village but appeared only to collect his share of the harvest. However, where the landlord lived in the village where his fields are, a cordial and close relationship existed with the cultivators receiving assistance in many ways from the landlord such as in times of illness, weddings, funerals, work their tea and rubber lands, for which they were paid, and in many other ways.

After the Act the goodwill which existed between the two parties gradually became strained and age old traditions and customs gave way to a very impersonal relationship with adverse affects to both parties.

There have been shortages of rice in the country in the last five decades or so. The first during World War II as imports from Burma ceased due to shipping difficulties caused by Japanese submarine activity in the seas between the two countries. Our dependence on such imports was due to the then British Government not allowing farmers to aswedumise (conversion of highland to paddy land) as it wanted Ceylon to be its market for rice produced in British owned paddy lands in Burma. The next was in the early 1970s due to severe foreign exchange problems the SLFP Government was faced with. During the first of these, the WW II years, mainly towns folk who ate only imported samba rice and rather looked down their noses at country rice and its eaters, virtually begged of the latter for a few measures of the very stuff they earlier said was difficult to chew and swallow!

Several State farms were then established by Government and various cereals such as cowpea, green gram, millet, maize etc. were popularized as substitutes for rice and even today these are common items at breakfast in many city and rural homes. During the later period of shortage people were asked by Government not to eat rice at least on two days of the week and make do with manioc, sweet potatoes etc. That earned the leader of the SLFP the nickname Batalawathie! There were during this period shortages of many other items of food, chillies, sugar etc. so much so that at a May Day rally vociferous participants sang,

‘Sirimavo Seedevi / Seeni Nathuwa te devi and alternately

Anura puthe nube amma ape badata paing anna’

In later years when reminded of these ditties the admirable grand old lady laughed as much as those who would have at their rallies!

Going further back into the history of rice ‘Wikipedia the free encyclopedia’ on the Internet offered a wealth of information. It traces the origin of rice cultivation to India in about 3000 BC and its spread westwards to southern Europe in medieval times. However, wild rice is said to have appeared in the Belan and Ganges valley regions in North India as early as 4530 BC and 5440 BC respectively while claims are made of domesticated rice in China to as far back as 7500 BC. Today, the two well known species of rice are Oriza Sativa and Oryza glaberrima which are native to tropical and sub tropical Southern Asia and Southeastern Africa. These varieties are said to be the second most consumed grain in the world providing one fifth of the total calories taken in by humans the world over.

Wikipedia states that 100 grams of white long grained raw un-enriched rice contains 79.95 grams of carbohydrates, 0.66 grams of fat and 7.13 grams of protein and over a dozen vitamins and trace elements. However, although a good source of protein it is not a complete protein lacking in essential amino acids and therefore needs to be supplemented with other proteins both of vegetable and animal origin.

Rice is a labour intensive crop and a search for high yielding varieties, for obvious reasons, resulted in the first modern rice ‘IR 8’ in 1966 - an outstanding achievement of the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. It was created through a cross between an Indonesian variety called ‘Peta’ and a Chiense variety called ‘Dee Geo Woo Gen’.

In 2005 China, India and Indonesia were the world’s top producers of rice while the three largest exporters were Thailand, Vietnam and the United States. The first two of these have grown rice from time immemorial but cultivation in the States began in 1694 in South Carolina using slave labour familiar with the crop from West Africa. Since the 1800s rice has been an important commercial crop in Arkansas, Louisiana and East Texas, some utilizing immigrant Chinese labour. Today more than 100 varieties of rice are grown in six States and in 2006 the crop was valued at $ 1.88 billion - about half of which was exported.

All this information leaves one with a sense of sorrow and disgust when considering our plight today. Rice has been our staple food from the year dot and at times said to have been exported but the country now cannot produce enough to feed its people when nature has provided the wherewithal. What have our leaders in the recent past and present been doing or not doing? There has been a lack of political will, absence of commitment, rank ineptitude and criminal self interest as well of a few.
- Sri Lanka Guardian