Colonial Green Revolution?: Food, Irrigation and the State in Colonial Malaya

This book investigates the relationship between colonialism and agricultural development. It focuses on Malaysia and rice production and investigates why a green revolution did not take place in colonial times, when in several ways the preconditions were laid for this. It is shown that colonial agricultural policy was based on a low-cost, low-tech model of rural development, which nevertheless offered a sustainable alternative to recent advances in grain production. The book draws on a wide variety of archival data and is aimed at social and agricultural scientists concerned with colonial history, peasant transformations and agricultural change.