A Rice Village Saga

The rice belt of Laguna Province, Philippines (popularly known as the heartland of the Green Revolution for its early adoption of modern rice varieties), has experienced dramatic economic and social changes in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Besides the major advances in new rice technology, four major forces have prompted change: increasing population pressure on limited land; implementation of land reform programs; developments in infrastructure such as irrigation and roads; and penetration of urban economic activities. A unique data set generated from many surveys during the period 1966-97 in a typical village in Laguna, as put together in this book, illustrates a pattern of socio-economic change shared by many irrigated rice areas in the Philippines as well as in other Asian economies.