RICE — CRIST 511 



UNITED STATES 



Rice was produced with slave labor during the early part of the lOth 

 century in tidewater sectors of the States of Georgia and the Caro- 

 linas. But the limited market in the Caribbean was soon cut off, 

 there was much more money to be made in cotton and tobacco, and the 

 rice industry gradually died out. 



The remarkable comeback experienced by rice culture during the 

 past 30 years in the States of Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and Cali- 

 fornia was made possible by tlie introduction of mechanized tech- 

 niques. Planting and harvesting operations are mechanized, chemical 

 fertilizers are lavishly used, and the most up-to-date weedkillers and 

 insecticides are spread over the fields by plane. 



The effect of government price supports on increasing production in 

 the postwar period can be seen in the following table : 



Average anmual rice production 



Hectares* Tons 



1934-38 338, 000 056, 000 



1948-52 702, 000 1, 924, 000 



1954 1, 032, 000 2, 912, 000 



• 1 hectare = 2.471 acres. 



The small size of the domestic market, coupled with the great difh- 

 culty of finding foreign markets without recourse to further govern- 

 ment subsidies in the form of export bonuses, forced tlie Government 

 in 1957 to limit acreage in rice to only 542,000 hectares, on which, 

 thanks to the continuous improvement in techniques, 1,056,000 tons of 

 rice were produced. The United States has become one of the world's 

 great rice exporters, averaging 72,000 tons during the years 1034-38, 

 583,000 tons from 1048-52, and 604,000 tons from 1953 to 1057. In 

 recent years, exports have gone to Japan, Indonesia, and Pakistan, as 

 well as to old customers in the West Indies such as Cuba and Puerto 

 Rico. 



RICE IN ASIA 



JAPAN 



Nationalism took a different turn m the densely populated areas of 

 the Far East. Industrialization in Japan meant a terrific pressure 

 on the capacity of that cormtry to produce food, particularly rice. 

 And the design of conquest of Asia by war, with the co-property 

 sphere and all that, was as much to get new lands to supply foodstuffs 

 as it was to get new raw materials for Japan's industries and new mar- 

 kets for its manufactured goods. Japan has been and still remains a 

 rice-importing country. On the average, between 1034 and 1038 Japan 

 produced 11,500,000 tons of paddy rice and imported 1,732,000 tons, 

 whereas from 1053 to 1057 the average production was 13,000,000 tons 



