Rice (1963)

today from an else off their ancestors learned thousands of years ago the evil GAO sold in the remote interior of northern Luzon and in the name of rice the indispensable of their life they conquered these mountains tier by tier from the valley floor two peaks thousand feet high they carved the face of mountains into rice fields isolated for thousands of years from the general life of Asia the ifugao village functions today much as it did in the beginning dependent on rice dependent on tradition and ritual to keep it safe and ensure is uninterruptedly dependent on methods so crude that an entire family must work most of the day to prepare and cook the only meal they will eat by hand just enough rice is threshed for the meal by hand just enough grain is pounded free of the halls by hand just enough rice is clean the most primitive agricultural methods in the world exact a grinding servitude from all members of the community but they must have their rice or die and this is the only way they know how to get it slowly laborious Lee wastefully at last they are about to receive their daily rice for this meal they have worked all day every day for 3,000 years and they are not alone the need for rice is no less relentless throughout the entire Far East and the methods used to produce the crop are almost identical from Pakistan to Japan Indonesia to the seafood gal village huddled in the darkness of another age some 1,500 miles due west across the South China Sea another rice growing cycle is beginning in the great Indochina Peninsula and it begins as it will end with oppressive and interminable labor with implements as primitive as those used by the mountain people of the Philippines in Thailand the ancient plow Cleaves earth prepares the fields for planting even older than the plow is the digging stick still used to turn the paddy soil in the mountain kingdom of nepal as old as asia's methods for breaking the ground by the device is used to irrigate a crop which more than any other depends on a constant and controlled supply of water yet these methods this agricultural system mired in Neolithic times is responsible for feeding more than half the world's population almost 2 billion human beings who depend on rice as their main daily food in most of the countries which comprise the rice bowl this system is failing shortages are acute and Asia's ever-increasing population needs 4 million more tons of rice each year can it come from these patties across monsoon Asia the farmer does what he can and what he knows he sews his precious seed and prays that it will grow strong and bare grain and he asks the gods to be generous to protect the seed from wind and drought and from the dark hand of disease and in the city the people do what they can to help the seed grow they turn to their ancient rituals in Bangkok in a great national ceremony every step of rice planting is reenacted blessed is the King's golden plough so that the farmers plow may be blessed blessed is the water may it bring forth the rains in a society so utterly dominated by one fool the people cannot do enough to safeguard the crop to placate the gods who watch over it rice is woven into the spiritual fabric of the Far East and never made a people forget it to Buddhist monks in search of food they give of their meager supply and generously because almost 3,000 years ago the founder of their religion divided all things into ten classes of which Buddha was first and rice second the life of Japan is her rice throughout its entire growing cycle the Honorable grain plays an essential role in almost every religious ceremony Shinto priests each sacred rice grains and drink wine made of rice in silent supplication that the gods will continue to bless the crop and make the patties more and more product in the shrines and in the fields the powerful grain and the talismans which protect it are honored before the transplanting season begins a farmer in Thailand builds his own shrine becomes his own priest symbolically into the good earth he transplants seven rice seedlings one for each day of the week and he prays for the success of the entire crop he is about to transplant as he has prayed for its welfare since the grain first appeared in these lands near the dawn of Agriculture but from the beginning a delicate balance has existed between the amount of rice grown and the numbers to be fed today the balance is precarious and four million more tons of rice must be grown every year can it come from these patties this is the critical time for the crop when young plants from the nearby nursery are set by hand in the mud of the flooded patties all over the rice bowl the scene is the same arms and hands and legs submerged in water restrained by mud day after week after century eventually the transplanting is done and the farmer looks in weariness toward the leaden skies out of the Indian Ocean out of the South China Sea the rains sweep across Asia replenishing millions of patties and now the farmer must wait his crop is planted he has done all he can his patties will yield only as much as the gods allow he believes this because he does not know that for the most part the fate of his crop was sealed when he broadcast his seed whatever genetic endowment of yield or resistance the seed had then the growing plant has now the good water drenches the lowlands and rushes down the sculptured mountains of northern luzon down bamboo conduits that are as old as agriculture all the farmer can do while his plants are growing is to keep the weeds from stealing the nutrients in the earth weeding in Japan is done between the most tightly planted and closely spaced rows in the rice bowl and with per acre yields among the highest in the world Japan was still import rice in the Philippines the patties are weeded between rows that could be doubled or tripled in the world where wheat is the staff of life people are taught to ask give us this day our daily bread in the world of rice the people come to their field and say mother I am hungry feed me ok yet even in bounty this is a harvest that can never satisfy Asia's persistent rice shortages this is a harvest totally inadequate in the face of a staggering needs of multiplying millions solo is the yield that it takes two and one half acres of rice to feed one family and all the harvests in all the countries have not been able to feed all the families that must have their rice or die in Bali it is thought that the rice has the soul of the woman and the gentle Reapers must be careful not to frighten her even as they cut her down when tradition governs and agricultural care must be taken it must always be taken not to offend the spirit of the rice and thus ensure that the magic of the harvest will be repeated next season and in all seasons to come now the grain is separated from the straw in the Philippines as it of Asia the crop is still threshed as it was 3,000 years ago by him punishing labor this is an agricultural system that subjugates the workers shackles them to the fields permits them little time for anything else for rice represents up to eighty percent of the entire calorie intake of the Far East and so it must be gotten threshed and widowed with days stretching into nights with antiquated implements or none at all by pounding pounding pounding as it has been planted weeded harvested and freshed the crop now leaves the farms slowly laborious Lee wastefully the waterways and marketing centers are choked with the transportation and distribution of rice on its way to people who must have it to live it is moved by many hands in the Far East rice can scripts the labor of four out of every five people it's traffic spreads across national boundaries and interlocks the scattered countries of the rice bowl into one dependent community the price of grain may fluctuate its supply in the market of one country may reflect a lost harvest in another a thousand miles away millions may need it but may not be able to get it or enough of it if they cannot meet the price coolies complete the enslaving cycle of work that started with the ploughing the grain is nearing the end of the line on its way to the great cities and marketplaces of the rice bowl upriver to Chiang Rai overland to rocket on to Singapore Jakarta Saigon and Hong Kong where millions wait to be fed rice rice rice the one food that can satisfy the tenacious hunger of Asia's swelling numbers but with all the homage paid to it with all the labor and all the efforts and even in the best of years not enough rice gets to the people who need it because not enough rice is grown this is a city which cannot get enough to eat these are a handful of the two billion human beings who must be fed here antiquated agricultural methods reveal an inevitable result the ancient system strained to its limits is in danger of collapsing from the weight of millions clamoring for rice a family of five needs as much as 40 pounds of rice every week where will it come from this population is increasing by nearly a million every week 1 million every week there will not be enough rice tomorrow more and more are hungry today not far from the yesterday's of the ifugao village lies a hope for the insistent tomorrow's of Asia it is the international rice research institute a project of the Ford Foundation the Rockefeller Foundation and the Republic of the Philippines here at los bonos near Manila our laboratories greenhouses machine shops dormitories and one of the largest libraries on rice in the world this and more a staff of the world's leading rice experts are conducting research in helping to develop the skills of younger scientists from rice bowl countries this and more some 200 acres of experimental plots are producing today harvest after harvest of high-yield disease resistant rice in charge of the program is dr. Robert F Chandler jr. of the Rockefeller Foundation the international rice research institute is located in the tropics on purpose because this is where youth of rice are extremely low about three times as much rice it's produced per given area of land in the temperate zone countries than in the tropics we wondering why it is that rice yields are so low and we have already found here at the tute that it is possible to get as much as six times the national average there in the Philippines of rice by treating it correctly as we travel about the country we see rice fields that are weedy rice fields that have large numbers of insects and diseases present we see for spacing we see the use of varieties that don't have high yield potentialities we see improper management of irrigation water therefore we feel that through science and through education we can point the way toward a better life for those people in the right producing and rice consuming countries this is the real challenge that faces the agricultural scientist today at the Institute the rice problems of every country and every region of Asia are under intense investigation since nineteen sixty one some ten thousand varieties have been gathered from over 70 countries the collection growing daily is already the largest in the world staff scientists work at two jobs to gain knowledge by which to improve and increase the production of rice and to trained specialists who will carry this knowledge back to their own countries the most modern analytic instruments are used to explore the basic life cycle of Asia's oldest grain scientists use radioactive isotopes to determine how the crop can become more nutritious how the same helping of rice can give more protein most of the rice Asia now grows is vulnerable to the stem borer at the Institute entomologists have already discovered 36 varieties which are genetically resistant to this insect plant pathologists have found more than six hundred varieties resistant to blast disease the crops most persistent killer a widespread virus has been identified and found to be carried by a tiny insect called the leap hopper physiologists are trying to develop a high-yield spraying that will grow in a low fertility soil soil scientists are investigating the effects of the chemical processes of flooded soils on the productivity of the rice plant agronomists compare the progress of rice seedlings that have received too much water with seedlings that have received too little in these test plots an irrigation system permits engineers to flood or drain the fields at will and thus duplicate the actual conditions under which the crop grows at sea level or high in the homogeneous plant breeders are creating new varieties which combine the best qualities of one strain with achieve advantages of another at the Institute the results of these experiments have been encouraging and some have been spectacular rice specialists trained here are going home to farmers to methods and to crops that can benefit from everything they have learned for million more tons of rice must be grown every year and it can be done through knowledge and its application in the rice paddies of Asia Asia's population is increasing by nearly 1 million every week they must be fed you you