Where is Rice Grown?
This Caribbean country shifted from growing rice for local consumption to being the region’s largest exporter by the early 20th century
What is Guyana?
Too much or too little of this essential environmental factor could either wash away seedlings or prevent grain formation, producing crop failure.
What is water?
Farmers built drainage canals and employed pumps primarily to maintain this essential balance required for sustained rice growth.
What is controlled water management?
The largest population-based turning point in Caribbean rice farming occurred with the arrival of this labor force, who already knew how to grow rice.
Who were Indian indentured laborers?
Indian laborers were able to begin cultivating rice almost immediately because they brought this advantage with them upon arrival.
What is cultural and traditional rice-growing knowledge?
Rice production in Suriname was concentrated in a coastal district whose location made irrigation easier but also exposed farms to flooding.
What is the Nickerie District?
Without properly engineered channels and pumps, rice fields could not regulate this necessary agricultural process, worsening both droughts and floods.
What is irrigation and drainage control?
Farmers could prevent crop-wide infection by removing diseased rice plants and using this type of chemical treatment.
What is pesticides?
The greatest expansion of rice production took place after the collapse of this major export industry that once dominated the Caribbean economy.
What is the sugar industry?
Guyana’s geography benefited rice production because its landscape possessed this physical trait suited to controlled flooding and drainage.
What is low-lying, flat land?
Rice cultivation expanded most rapidly in these two Guyanese regions after Indian indentured laborers left the sugar estates and began independent farming.
What are Berbice and West Demerara?
The disease rice blast was especially dangerous because its method of spread allowed it to do this rapidly to nearby fields.
What is infect surrounding rice plants and wipe out large areas?
Sharing harvesting equipment and reducing individual costs became possible when farmers participated in these collaborative economic organizations.
What are cooperatives?
When demand increased for rice because it was a staple food for newly arrived immigrants, planters began doing this to supply the colony.
What is importing rice for local sale?
Indentured workers gained the independence to farm commercially after receiving this form of compensation at the end of their labor contracts.
What are small settlement land plots?
In Trinidad, rice remained mostly small-scale because production was confined to limited agricultural zones such as the Nariva Swamp and these plains.
What are the Caroni Plains?
Rice farmers were locked into labor-intensive methods because they lacked access to this category of expensive agricultural inputs, such as harvesters and tractors.
What is capital machinery/equipment?
Some pest management solutions avoided chemicals entirely, instead depending on these biological factors to destroy insects naturally.
What are natural predators?
The first known community to cultivate rice in Guyana did so without external support, laying the foundation for later agricultural practices.
Who were the Bush Negroes?
After leaving the sugar estates, indentured laborers followed a settlement pattern similar to freed slaves, doing this to establish new communities.
What is settling close to plantations?
Before rice became a major export crop, small quantities were grown in Guyana by a community whose independent agricultural traditions predated indentureship.
Who were the Bush Negroes?
Large plantations struggled to modernize because unlike the sugar industry, rice mills remained limited to this description, hindering efficiency and output.
What is “basic” or “primitive” processing equipment?
Even with canals and ditches in place, this long-term maintenance task was essential to keep water flowing properly in and out of fields.
What is drainage system upkeep/maintenance?
By 1912, Guyana crossed a historic economic milestone when its rice trade figures showed this shift in international balance for the first time.
What is exporting more rice than importing?
Planters had to support a continual supply of imported rice because it fulfilled this fundamental requirement of the new immigrant workforce.
What is their staple dietary need?