THE TRADITIONAL CONTEXT OF PADI PRODUCTION

The extensive monoculture of padi in the Kedah Plains is directly dependent on the availability of water. However, no traditional system of irrigation was developed to regulate the supply or access to water. Padi cultivation was entirely dependent on the rainfall brought regularly by the South-east Monsoon. During the dry season, the clay surface of the Plain dried up so completely that no crop whatsoever could be planted. Consequently,

The social organization of padi cultivation had thus to contend firstly, with individual household surplus management and/or consumption ties with other village households or sources of credit outside the village economy in order to tide over the lean and hungry months; secondly, inadequacy of household labour for harvesting in particular, due to the uniformity of the ripening process. Production ties thus had to be established with other households either in the form of exchange or hired labour.

On the other hand, however, the absence of irrigation as an important factor of production made the development of communal forms of organization based on the village as a territorial unit unnecessary.

The production ties made incumbent by the simultaneity of padi operations were of a flexible and largely dyadic nature, of which three major arrangements were found:

1. “Kontrek” (contract) arrangements between a farm operator and another villager, who would “help” with the transplanting or harvesting every year. This approximates to a patron-client relationship.[…]