China: Feeding a Billion

One of the most encouraging aspects in this view of the future is the continuing diversity of rice culture. To the casual visitor, the most obvious change in the landscape will be in the flat country along the north coast of Java or in central Thailand: the sweeping curves of field boundaries that now follow the contour lines will be replaced by the straight sides of rectangular fields, levelled by machines in the way we watched Larry Tubbs’s field being levelled at Mer Rouge. The contrast between the two types is already a striking one as you fly over rice lands in America and Australia. But the real revolution is going to be in farm management. Rice farming has always required knowledge, experience and judgement. In the future, it will demand highly trained skills and specialization; in return, it will provide a career ladder like any other business enterprise.