BURMA RICE. 



By A. MCKERRAL, M.A., B.Sc. 

 Deputy Director of Agriculture, Southern Circle, Burma. 



IN the present paper it is not intended to enter largely 

 into the commercial aspects of the Burma rice trade, but 

 to deal more particularly with methods of cultivation and 

 with the nature of the rice plant as cultivated in Burma. 

 Those who are interested in the strictly economic aspect 

 of the matter may be referred to a paper entitled tk Burma 

 Rice," recently written by Mr. F. Noel-Paton, Director- 

 General of Commercial Intelligence, India. 1 In that 

 paper a very full account is given of the methods of 

 buying, storing, transporting, milling, and exporting of 

 the product, and many important problems of the future, 

 such as the use of elevators, are discussed in detail. 



Statistical Aspect. 



As a preliminary to the present paper, the salient 

 statistical aspects of the trade may be briefly recapitulated. 

 In rice-producing area Burma ranks only fifth among 

 the great Provinces of India, Bengal being first with some 

 50,000,000 acres, while Burma, during the season ending 

 June 30, 1913, had only some 10,000,000 under cultivation. 

 Despite this fact, Burma accounts for 75 per cent, of 

 the total exports of rice from the Indian Empire, and 

 contributes 63 per cent, of the Western World's imports, 

 while India proper contributes 1*3 per cent. only. The 

 reason for this apparent anomaly is that in Burma the 

 population is small in proportion to the area under rice, 

 the acreage per head being 0*832 for Burma, as against 



1 Calcutta, Superintendent of Government Printing, India, 



IQI2. 



