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Thailand Economic Development
The Thai never lacked a rich food supply. Peasants planted
rice for their own consumption and to pay taxes. Whatever
remained was used to support religious institutions. From the
thirteenth to the fifteenth century, however, a remarkable
transformation took place in Thai rice cultivation. In the
highlands, where rainfall had to be supplemented by a system of
irrigation that controlled the water level in flooded paddies,
the Thai sowed the glutinous rice that is still the staple in the
geographical regions of the North and Northeast. But in the
floodplain of the Chao Phraya, farmers turned to a different
variety of rice--the so-called floating rice, a slender,
nonglutinous grain introduced from Bengal--that would grow fast
enough to keep pace with the rise of the water level in the
lowland fields
(see Crops
, ch. 3).
The new strain grew easily and abundantly, producing a
surplus that could be sold cheaply abroad. Ayutthaya, situated at
the southern extremity of the floodplain, thus became the hub of
economic activity. Under royal patronage, corvee labor dug canals
on which rice was brought from the fields to the king's ships for
export to China. In the process, the Chao Phraya Delta--mud flats
between the sea and firm land hitherto considered unsuitable for
habitation--was reclaimed and placed under cultivation.
Data as of September 1987
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