All The World's

Rice

What Will Japan Do With It?

WITH the conquest of Burma, Thai land and French Indo-China com pleted, Japan now controls 95 per cent, of the world’s rice supply which normally enters international trade.

These three countries, often referred to in the world rice picture as the Big Three, export on the average over 13 billion pounds of rice annually, while all the countries now in the Japanese orbit import less than 4 billion pounds. Japan, therefore, has a surplus of 9 billion pounds of rice on her hands to dispose of annually. What will she do with it?

Japan needs very little of it. From 1933 to 1938 Japan was practically self sufficient in rice. She was producing 86 per cent, of her own requirements and was receiving 13.7 per cent, from her colonies, Korea and Formosa.

For several decades, however, Japan was gravely concerned about her food supply and spent considerable effort in fostering increased production, both at home and in her colonies. As a result, in all three areas yields per acre were raised substantially and some expansion in acreage occurred. In the middle 1930’s Japan, realising that she had about attained self-sufficiency, shifted her rice expansion programme back into second gear.

How much rice do Japanese-occupied countries require? Manchuria is prac tically s6lf-sufficient and rice production is expanding. Occupied China could use a billion pounds if the “peacemakers of the Far East” permitted its importation.

In fact, with proper distribution the Chinese could consume an even larger quantity, but this seems unlikely under present conditions. The Philippine Islands’ import requirements are insigni ficant, as in recent years of good har vests exports are about equal to imports.

The Netherlands Indies, which a decade ago was a huge importer, has rapidly increased production so that the country had attained self-sufficiency in 1940, British Malaya, the greatest deficit area now under Japanese control, normally produces only about one-third of its total requirements. It is expected that this area will be able to continue to obtain its imports of about two billion pounds annually from Burma and Thailand.

For the time being, it seems probable that Japan will import as much as she desires, will pay for it with printing press money, and will be unconcerned about the remainder. The Burmese, Siamese and Indo-Chinese will be unable to dis pose of the huge surplus and will be unable to obtain textiles and other neces

sities, a matter of vital concern to these peoples. Surplus rice in those areas and shortages elsewhere will usher in Japan’s “co-prosperity sphere”.—“Far Eastern Survey”, June, 1942.

EDITORIAL NOTE.—It seems more likely that Japan, finding this huge quantity of cheap food available, will divert thousands of workers from her domestic rice industry to her essential wartime industries, and in this way will get a substantial and direct benefit from her capture of the rice-growing coun tries of the world.

Australian Rice For

Territories

IT was officially announced on August 11 that all rice in Australia is to be withheld from the civil population, in order that supplies may be sent to Papua, Fiji, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and other islands to assist in feeding native labour.

The importation of rice to the South Pacific as a staple food for natives gener ally—and especially labour lines—repre sented an important trade between those territories and Burma, Indo-China and the Dutch East Indies.

The whole of the rice production of Indonesia now has been cut off from the world market through the Japanese occupation of Malaya, Burma, Indo-China and the East Indies. The extraordinary position now exists that while Japan has on her hands many times as much rice as she and the countries she now occupies can consume, the rice-consuming coun tries of the world are now without their regular supplies. Even the small amount grown in Australia, plus Australia’s accu mulated store of rice, is needed for the Pacific Territories.