RICE IN COLONIAL AND POST COLONIAL SOUTHEAST ASIA: A FOOD REGIME ANALYSIS

Abstract

This paper traces the ways in which rice, as a global commodity, has been produced and sold in various regions in Southeast Asia from the colonial era to the present days. This paper employs a food regime analysis first introduced by Harriet Friedmann (1982) and later developed together with Philip McMichael (1989) to look at the global political economy of rice. In this paper, it will be shown how various colonial and post colonial states in Southeast Asia (including Thailand who was never formally colonized) through their policies have practically divided the region where Burma (now Myanmar), Thailand and Vietnam in the mainland have become major rice producer and exporter, while Indonesia, Malaya (now Malaysia), and the Philippines in the archipelagic Southeast Asia have become major rice importers although at the same time p ro d u c e rs a nd ex p o rt e r s o f ot h e r ag ro-commodities (coffee, sugar, rubber).