ENG-1954 — Page 83

PRODUCTION AND MARKETING

vegetables and livestock products under normal circum- stances command fair prices. Small quantities of animal feeding stuffs are grown locally but most of the feed for livestock is imported. The principal crops grown for local consumption are rice and vegetables. Fruits, including papaya, pineapple, bananas, lychees, lungngan, guava, citrus (lemons, pomelos, oranges and mandarins) are grown in small quantities. Small quantities of sugar cane, groundnuts and millet are also grown in season and in the winter sweet potatoes are produced on a large scale.

As a result of the prohibition placed upon the export of Chinese products to America local farmers have developed a few export crops such as water chestnuts and prepared vegetable and fruit products, but the increasing demand of a large local population for home grown foods limits the area of land brought under export crops. However, this new development has brought ready cash to the rural areas and broadened the economy of subsistence farming.

Rice. Chinese farmers are naturally adept in the cultivation of rice, their staple food, and they have evolved varieties and farming techniques to conform to the local environment. The rent of farm land is almost always reckoned in terms of paddy and an average rent would be about 1,600 lbs. of paddy per acre per annum, or about 40% of the total annual yield from the two crops of rice. Much higher yields are obtained in more favoured areas by the use of selected seed of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry.

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