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Disappearing Rice Varieties

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Description

The rice in the photo is known as "Namar catsa" or "Caca". It looks strange from its name to its colour. According to the farmers, the rice used to be eaten by the Kings and the senior citizens because it is nutritious. The interviewee shared, "it made up complete balanced nutrition for the sick or weak. But now most of our people don't have much knowledge concerning with that kind of paddy ( including me). Today that kind of rice is not grown widely".

When I asked for the reason, his response hinted a common change, "[t]he answer is simple - its production rate doesn't make it very lucrative proposition because it needs use of hand mills which requires more labour. Thus, the farmers are not keen to plant it".

University
University of Yangon
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(Partial) Date
Location

Myanmar (Burma)

Site of knowledge & meaning
Feeling & motive

Comments

Su Sandy, it was nice to read your entry and it's one of the examples how traditional varieties are affected by the more basic factors like costs and labour involved. It'll be nice to see if there are more examples like this.