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Rice Cultivation in Thailand: The Development of an Export Economy by Indigenous Capital and Labor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

David B. Johnston
David B. Johnston
Affiliation:
Thacher School, Ojai, California
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Extract

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the three Southeast Asian societies of Thailand, Burma, and Vietnam were confronted rather suddenly with a large and growing foreign demand for their principal product, rice. Without detailing the development of this demand, we may note that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European countries had begun not only to consume large amounts of rice as a cheap dietary staple, but also to make use of it in the brewing industry, as a supplement to wheat in flour products, as a starch for sizing textiles, and as feed for livestock. At the start of the nineteenth century, new milling and processing techniques enabled European consumers to look abroad for their rice needs, and the Indian provinces of Bengal and Madras and portions of the southern United States became major sources of supply. Towards the middle of the century, the Indian Mutiny and the American Civil War disrupted these sources at a time when improvements in transportation were making it possible for European importers to purchase their rice in even more distant areas, primarily Southeast Asia.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , February 1981 , pp. 107 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

1 Citations beginning with ‘NA’ refer to documents in the National Archives in Bangkok. The accompanying letters and numberals refer to the organization of files in the archives. Citations beginning with ‘FA’ refer to documents of the Office of the Finanical Adviser which are kept in the Library of the Ministry of Finance in Bangkok.

Citations beginning with ‘I’ refer to interviews which I conducted in Thailand during 1972.

2 Cheng, Siok-Hwa, The Rice Industry of Burma, 1852–1940 (Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, 1968), Ch. I;Google Scholarvan der Heide, J. Homan, ‘The Economical Development of Siam During the Last Half Century,’ Journal of the Siam Society, 3, Pt 2 (1906), 83;Google ScholarJames, C. Ingram, Economic Change in Thailand, 1850–1970 (Stanford, 1971), pp. 41–3;Google Scholar and Norman, G. Owen, ‘The Rice Industry of Mainland Southeast Asia 1850–1914,’ Journal of the Siam Society, 59, Pt 2 (July 1971), 78–81.Google Scholar

3 The exact sources of the demand and destinations of the exports are not always easy to identify. See James, C. Ingram, ‘Thailand's Rice Trade and the Allocation of Resources,’ in Cowan, C. D. (ed.), The Economic Development of South-East Asia (London, 1964), pp. 105–9;Google Scholar and David, B. Johnston, ‘Rural Society and the Rice Economy in Thailand, 1880–1930,’ Diss. Yale, 1975,Google Scholar[henceforth Johnston, , 1975] pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

4 The first of these treaties, that with Great Britain, is reproduced in John, BowringThe Kingdom and People of Siam (London, 1857), II, 216–22.Google Scholar See also Ingram, Economic Change, pp. 33–5.Google Scholar

5 Johnston, 1975, pp. 22–5.Google Scholar

6 NA Ag: N.K.: 86,3839, Sai Snidvongs, Suaphan Snidvongs, and Patibatratprasong to Surasakmontri, 24 May 1894: 1, 7.

7 These various enterprises are discussed in Johnston, 1975, Ch. II.Google Scholar

8 ‘Rice Milling,’ Bangkok Times, 20 June 1902, p. 4.Google Scholar

9NA Ag: N.K.: 62,2483, McCarthy to Surasakmontri, 6 April 1895.

10 Johnston, 1975, Ch. III.Google Scholar

11 Anuman, Rajadhon, Kansüksa rüang prapheni thai lae chiwit chao thai samai k¸n (Bangkok, 1972), pp. 306–7;Google Scholarde Young, John E.Village Life in Modern Thailand (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1963), pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

11 Anuman, pp. 306–7;Google Scholarde Young, pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

12 NA Ag: N.K.: 86,3837, Suaphan and Müller to Surasakmontri, 14 May 1894.

13 ‘Local and General,’ Bangkok Times, 4 April 1898.

14 Thailand, Metropolitan Revenue Department, Second Annual Report of the Bangkok Revenue Department, for the year 118 (Bangkok, 1900), p. 4.Google Scholar

15 Ingram, , Economic Change, pp. 37–41, 52–4.Google Scholar

16 Ingram, Economic Change, pp. 7–8, gives a useful review of the various nineteenth-century population estimates.Google Scholar

17 ‘The Labor Question in Siam,’ Bangkok Times, 14 August 1899, pp. 3–4.Google Scholar

18 ‘Siamese Mode of Sowing and Planting Rice,’ Bangkok Calendar, 1870, p. 44.Google Scholar

19 I: S.Ch.L. (127); Jacob, T. Child, The Pearl of Asia (Chicago, 1892), pp. 143–4;Google Scholar and relevant portions of interviews with farmers at the Land Registration Office in Ayudhya in 1911, contained in NA Ag: Ph.P., R.N.: 21, 434, and NA Ag: Ph.P., R.N.: 27, 532.

20 I: S.Ch.L. (127); ‘The Rice Harvest,’ Bangkok Times 17 December 1907, p. 15;Google Scholar and ‘Rice Exhibition at Tanyaburi,’ Bangkok Times, 2 February 1908, pp. 11–12.Google Scholar

21 NA 5/1 N. 3.2 Ch/18 contains the relevant documents.

22 NA 5/1 N. 3.2 K/63, Ratsadak¸nkoson to Naret, 6 February 1907; NA 6 K. 5/1, Patibatratprasong to King, 18 March 1911, p. 6; and Phraya, Phetcharada, ‘Rai-ngan pračham pi kh¸ng monthon nakh¸n ratchasima,’ Thetsaphiban, 31, no. 11 (1931), 808.Google Scholar

23 See, for instance, NA 5/1. N. 3.2 K/63, Phra Ratsadak¸nkoson to Naret, 6 02 1907; NA 5/1. N. 3.2 Ch/8, Nonthaburi to Yomarat, 10 May 1909, pp. 1–2; and Na 5 K. 3.1/12, petition from 57 farmers, 24 January 1910, pp. 2–3, and Cabinet meeting, 20 August 1909, pp. 4–5.

24 The Bangkok Times was enthusiastic about the eventual role of foreign labor, and it devoted a number of articles to a discussion of the desirability of Indian as opposed to Chinese workers. See, for instance, ‘The Labor Question in Siam,’ 14 August 1889, pp. 3–4; and ‘Our Labor Supply.’ 4 November 1890, p. 2.

25 Robert, Gordon ‘The Economic Development of Siam,’ Journal of the Society of Arts, 39, no. 1998 (6 March 1891), 293.Google Scholar

26 Johnston, 1975, pp. 84–8.Google Scholar

27 NA 5 K. 9.3/9, Sommot to Rivett-Carnac, 15 December 1899; and Thailand, Ministry of Agriculture, Rai-ngan pračham pi krasuang kasettrathikan tangtae düan kanyayon r.s. 118 thüng düan minakhom r.s. 130 (Bangkok, 1911), p. 66.Google Scholar

28 der Heide, J. Homan van, General Report on Irrigation and Drainage in the Lower Menam Valley (Bangkok, 1903).Google Scholar

29 FA 18/5, Van der, Heide, ‘Note in Regard to the Various Particulars of the Irrigation Scheme at Reduced Capacity,’ pp. 9–10.Google Scholar

30 Johnston, 1975, pp. 92–6.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., pp. 52–84, 104–12.

32 Ibid., pp. 236–8.

33 Graham, W. A., Siam: A Handbook of Practical, Commercial, and Political Information (London, 1924), II, 18–19.Google Scholar

34 Ingram, Economic Change, p. 69.Google Scholar

35 Sanitwongse, Yai Suvabhan, The Rice of Siam (Bangkok, 1927), pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

36 NA Ag: N.K.: 88, 3811, Mathap and 17 co-signers to Surasakmontri, 13 August 1896.

37 NA 5 K. 3.1/9, Mahayotha to Mahit, 7 July 1899.

38 For discussions of these practices, see NA Ag: Ph.P., R.N.: 22, 446, Wongsanupraphat to King, 17 September 1911, p. 7; and NA 5 K. 4.1/5, Damrong to King, 20 10 1896.

39 Michael, P. Adas, ‘Agrarian Development and the Plural Society in Lower Burma, 1852–1941,’ Diss. Wisconsin 1971, p. 169,Google Scholar using as his reference Ingram, Economic Change, pp. 65–6.Google Scholar

40 Prinz, Dilock, Die Landwirtschaft in Siam (Leipzig, 1908), p. 71.Google Scholar

41 Lucien, M. Hanks, Rice and Man: Agricultural Ecology in Southeast Asia (Chicago, 1972), pp. 23–68;Google ScholarJohnston, 1975, pp. 201–2.Google Scholar

42 NA Ag: Ban.: 20,687, Phonlak¸n to Udum, 19 August 1926, p. 7.

43 I: B.S.R. (2).

44 NA Ag: L.N., S.:5,18:2–3, ‘Memorandum of Procedure Suggested by the Minister of Lands and Agriculture for consideration of the Members at the first meeting,’ September 1930, p. 4. The argument that cultivation techniques became more extensive is supported by the limited available evidence on plot size. It suggests that plots of ownership were largest, and cultivation therefore probably most extensive, in the most recently settled and most highly commercialized districts. See Johnston, 1975, pp. 219–20.Google Scholar

45 Johnston, 1975, pp. 211–13.Google Scholar

46 See ibid., pp. 213–19, for a discussion of two other ways in which cultivation appears to have grown more extensive in these years.

47 The causes were, in brief, a series of poor harvests; the appreciation of the unit of currency, the baht, and the consequent decrease in rice prices between 1902 and 1908; increases in land and other taxes; and reforms of military conscription regulations, which disrupted the labor force in some households. See ibid., pp. 285–301.

48 Ibid., pp. 321–2.

49 Ibid., 304, 326–9, 386–91.

50 Ingram, Economic Change, p. 38.Google Scholar

51 That Sihasaksanitwong Chumsai, Chokchata nai chiwit thi phočhai (Bangkok, 1963), pp. 383–84.Google Scholar

52 NA Ag: B.Kh.Kh.: 10, 254, Van der Heide, ‘Note,’ p. 5.

53 NA 6 K. 5/11, ‘Rüang b¸risat khut khl¸ng,’ pp. 154–63.

54 Ibid., pp. 136–47.

55 NA 6 K.5/7, ‘Rüang b¸risat,’ pp. 309–10.

56 Ibid., pp. 310–11.

57 NA 6K. 5/4, ‘Rüang b¸risat’, pp. 72–4; NA 6 K. 5/7, ‘Rüang borisat’, pp. 311–15, 386–92, 397–400; and NA 6 K. 5/1, Patibatratprasong to King, 18 March 1911, pp. 8–9.

58 Johnston, 1975, pp. 304, 326–9, 386–91.Google Scholar

59 Johnston, 1975, pp. 370–1, 397–404.Google Scholar

60 Gordon, ‘Economic Development’, pp. 291–93; Na Ag: Ph.P., B.: 22,449, Wongsanupraphat, ‘Memmoeraendam thi čha kaekhai’, pp. 5–6; NA 7 Ph. 8.1/1, Report by Phraya Indra Montri (F. H. Giles), 1 July 1930, pp. 14–15;Google Scholar and Robertson, C. J. ‘The Rice Export from Burma, Siam and French Indo-China’, Pacific Affairs, 9, no. 2 (June 1936), 243–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61 Adas, , ‘Agrarian Development’. Adas's dissertation has been published as The Burma Delta: Economic Development and Social Change on the Rice Frontier, 1852–1941 (Madison, 1974),Google Scholar but the references in this paper are to the original dissertation. Other useful studies include Cheng, Siok-Hwa, The Rice Industry of Burma, 1852–1940 (Kuala Lumpur, 1968),Google Scholar and John, S. Furnivall, An Introduction to the Political Economy of Burma (Rangoon, 1938).Google Scholar

62 Adas, ‘Agrarian Development’, p. 362.Google Scholar

63 Gordon, ‘Economic Development,’ pp. 291–3;Google ScholarGraham, Siam, II, 108–9.Google Scholar

64 Adas, ‘Agrarian Development,’ p. 533.Google Scholar

65 Ibid., p. 344.

66 Ibid., p. 363. On the earlier prosperity, see ibid., pp. 202–3, 316.

67 Ibid., pp. 420–422.

68 Ibid., p. 316.

69 Ibid., p. 363.

70 Ibid., p. 422.

71 Ibid., p. 533.

72 None of what has been said here is intended to deny the importance of other, especially political, factors, to conditions in Burma and Thailand during the 1930s and 1940s. In Burma, it is clear that the alien, colonial administration, and the ethnically plural society which it had created, fed Burmese nationalist movements during these decades. And, just as clearly, in Thailand, the essential political and administrative continuity, despite the coup of 1932, and the absence of a colonial administration, contributed to peace and stability.

73 Pierre, Gourou, Land Utilization in French Indochina (Washington, 1945);Google ScholarCharles, Robequain, The Economic Development of French Indo-China (London, 1944)Google Scholar; Robertson, ‘The Rice Export’; and Owen, ‘The Rice Industry.’

74 Clifford, Geertz, Agricultural Involution (Berkeley, 1963).Google Scholar