Coffee and Rice

For the past couple of days, I was reading about how coffee plantation arrived in Latin America and how it became such an important export for the region, especially for Brazil, since the mid-19th century onwards. It is said that coffee makes modern Brazil. 

It reminds me of how rice played the same role for countries in mainland Southeast Asia during the same period. 

Coffee was widely planted in Brazil from the beginning of the 19th century, when European capitalists (especially the British) poured into Rio de Janeiro, and later in Sao Paulo to invest in coffee farming. From the 1850s onwards, Brazil flooded the world with coffee. 

After the second Anglo-Burmese War in 1852, Burma's rice production increased rapidly. Foreign investments reinforced this expansion. European merchants, shippers, and financiers invloved deeply in economic activities ranging from milling to money-lending. As a result, Burma became the world's no.1 rice producer only a few decades later. 

I have some comments:

1) The situation occured in two regions around the same time demonstrats how Pax Britannica expanded its capital all over the world.     

2) But there are many differences in detail. The most obvious is in terms of labour. Brazil imported millions of slave to work in coffee plantation whereas Burmese cultivator moved from the upper Burma to the Irawaddy-Sittang Delta to seek a better opportunity.  However, the situation in Siam was a bit different; Because Siam's Sakdina system was still dominating the society, Tad were forced to work for their Nai. The emancipation of Tad by King Chula shows how the need for labour in the expansion of Siam's rice frontier (Though this is debatable). 

3) Environmental impact from coffee plantation in Brazil is devastating. This is because a large area of land was cleared and burned. Also, coffee tired the land. Although lands were cleared in Burma as well, but the delta area in mainland Southeast Asia is perfect for planting rice. 

4) Both regions were exploited. Even though an increase in agricultural export generated income for the native people, those who became prospered were the British capitalists. Except in the case of Siam, where most profit ran into the royal and elites' purses (and later on, +Chinese capitalists'). 

Just some shallow observations. 

P.S. An ANN's list of must-go temples is interesting, not only for the Buddhists. 

   

Do Southeast Asians have entrepreneurial mind?

While I am working on my assignment about the connection of Southeast Asia to the world economy in the ninteenth century. A question came up; Do Southeast Asians have an entrepreneurial mind?

World capitalist system arrived in the region in many ways; An expansion of colonial empires from Britain, Dutch, Spain, France, and the U.S. Also, the Chinese and Indians came to the region for their economic activities.

Colonial powers as well as the Chinese and Indians were major forces in transforming the region to become a part of world's market.

Had natives initiated their own businesses?

One theory suggests that Southeast Asian farmers were formally self-sufficient. Then, after an arrival of colonial powers, they were drawn into the market economy.

Another theory shows that Southeast Asia was already part of World market (like Tony Reid's SEA in the Age of Commerce) but not in the perfect form, not consistence.

I argue that SEAsians do have entrepreneurial mind.

King Rama III of Siam had de-monopolized some economic activities even before the arrival of Sir. John Bowring. Furthermore, Burmese smallholders themselves were the intermidiaries for the selling/buying of goods to the British. In Java, after communal land system was demolished, Javanese competed to own land for cultivation.

Let's discuss.

Ps. Irawaddi's slide show on Burma's road to independence. Nice pictures.