Rice cultivation in North America influenced by West African culture

Scholars have unearthed evidence that early rice plantations in North America used cultivation techniques that originated on the Rice Coast of West Africa.

West Africans had been growing rice for thousands of years even before Portuguese mariners arrived in the region in the mid-fifteenth century. West Africans knew how to grow it in dry upland areas and in irrigated wetlands using many ingenious ways.

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Carolina Gold and Carolina White rice: a genetic odyssey
Carolina Gold and Carolina White are sister varieties of rice of the antebellum South that were similar, except that one had a golden husk, while the other was pale. Pearly grains and a nutty taste gave the Carolina rice varieties a special place on the British royal table, and made Charleston the most prosperous city in England’s American colonies. During their reign of two centuries, the sisters fostered vast rice plantations in the low country of Carolina and Georgia.

However, the true origin of Carolina Gold is probably Indonesia. It reached Madagascar through Indonesian immigrants who settled on the island in the 1st century AD. It is reported to have immigrated to the New World three centuries ago [around 1685] when a New England ship sailing from Madagascar to New York was forced by a storm to seek shelter in Charles Towne, which is now known as Charleston, South Carolina.

Rice of deities
Three thousand years ago, African rice (Oryza glaberrima) was first domesticated in central Niger in West Africa and then spread to the rest of the continent. For thousands of years, it sustained the economies of many precolonial African kingdoms in West and Central Africa. But, African rice has been overshadowed by its Asian relative, particularly since the early 20th century.

The decline of O. glaberrima began after the First World War, when colonial powers occupying West Africa promoted only Asian rice cultivars. Asia’s varieties went through seed multiplication and distribution programs of development projects that mainly catered to the colonizers’ commercial interests. The decline of O. glaberrima continued after the Second World War.

Agricultural Development in Asia and Africa: Essays in Honor of Keijiro Otsuka
This Open Access book explores the multifaceted nature of agricultural and rural development in Asia and examines the extent to which the Asian experience is being replicated in contemporary Africa.

This volume is a compilation of essays written by top researchers on the topics that Prof. Keijiro Otsuka has been working on in his career. The authors have had either a chance to work with him on a research project or are simply his good friends in the profession. The essays were written in a way easily understandable by people in many different disciplines. The aim of the volume is to identify the pathways of agricultural development in Asia and Africa. It evaluates whether Africa is following in Asia’s footprints.