514 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1960 



to be seen how attempts at self-sufficiency in Indonesia and elsewhere 

 will affect the market for rice from Burma. 



THAILAND 



Of the cultivated land of Thailand 92 percent is devoted to rice 

 production (see pis. 1-3). Irrigation works under construction will 

 make possible an increase in annual production of 800,000 tons. In 

 spite of an increase in population of 43 percent in 20 years (from 

 14.5 to 20.7 million), the high level of rice exports has been main- 

 tained, averaging 1,388,000 tons from. 1934 to 1938 and 1,283,000 tons 

 from 1953 to 1957. Rice production has more than doubled over the 

 past 40 years. Most of this rice is moved by river junk to the great 

 port of Bangkok, whence it is shipped to Singapore, Malaya, and 

 Japan, and in lesser amoimts to Indonesia and Hong Kong. 



PHILIPPINES 



The Philippines have for a long time been a rice-importing area, 

 in spite of considerable production. The postwar period has seen a 

 tremendous increase in production as a result of vast irrigation works 

 and the mechanization of many phases of rice culture. The average 

 amiual production from 1932-38 was 2,179,000 tons, against an av- 

 erage of 3,271,000 tons from 1953-57. In spite of an increase in 

 population of 45 percent (from 15.4 millions to 22.3 millions), im- 

 ports have been kept at a minimum — only 53,000 tons from 1953-57, 

 against 38,000 tons from 1932-38. 



PROBLEMS IN THE FAR EAST 



The food problem of Asia in general is of course made more and 

 more serious by the tremendous growth of population. There has 

 been at least a 30-percent increase in the last 20 years. This popula- 

 tion has been kept alive in several instances by large-scale imports — 

 particularly by imports of vast stores of surplus wheat made avail- 

 able at little or even no cost by the United States. The basic problem 

 of the Far East continues to be that of feeding an exploding popula- 

 tion. Japan once sought the solution to this problem in a mad policy 

 of political and military expansion, and, as long as the problem re- 

 mains, it could in the future act as a motive for similar adventures in 

 commercial, political, or military expansion, on the part of almost 

 any Asiatic country. 



The officers of the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, in discussing 

 the problems of rice production with agricultural leaders throughout 

 the world, and especially in Asia, found that rice improvement is a 

 question of real concern wherever rice is grown, and that there was 

 mutual agreement about the desirability of an international effort 

 directed toward increasing the supplies of this vital food. 



