RICE IN MALAYA : A STUDY IN HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY

Abstract

This study traces the evolution of rice-growing in Malaya from earliest times down to c.1910 which date marks the nadir of government interest in indigenous agriculture. Aspects studied include the spatial pattern and its evolution, changing rice cultivation systems, and rice-growing is set in its social and economic milieux. Part one is concerned with pre-colonial times and Part Two with the colonial one. The origins of rice-growing are, on botanical and archaeological rounds, traced to a region of abundant wild rices which extends from Orissa and Bengal to Indochina. In this region rice use was established in past-Hoabinhian times and the crop was extensively cultivated in all mainland Southeast Asian cultures from about the beginning of the Christian era. The scanty evidence of uproad and technical evolution down to c.1800 is reviewed. Broad typologies of systems and the annual cycles of cultivation at that date are presented. In Part Two detailed regional descriptions of rice cultivation are given. Four regions are delineated, the north, by far the most important, with two ‘wings’ one in the north-east and the other in the north-west, the south, centered on Malacca and the Minangkabau lands, the colonised lowlands between these centres and finally the aboriginal occupied uplands. Following these regional descriptions, the Malaya tide pattern of spatial evolution is summarized. The process of agricultural intensification is examined with reference to the Boserm hypothesis. Also discussed are the processes and effects of commercialization and agraianization. These accompanied a change from feudal forms of production and appropriation to partly-commercial pleasant forms of economic organisation. This study concludes with a brief review of the material and arguments presented in the body of the work.