Rice fields (Kazakhstan/Kyrgyzstan)

The sight of beautiful lush green fields of rice is a source of joy and delight, yet few people realise that rice cultivation is an extremely labour-intensive process requiring great perseverance and many years of experience.

There are two ways to cultivate rice by hand – seeds can be sown directly into the ground or seedlings can be propagated in crates and then transplanted into the field in late March or early April. Unlike other cereal crops, rice is very sensitive and needs large volumes of standing water. The root system of the rice plant means that it can best absorb the necessary nutrients in waterlogged soil with an average temperature of at least 23-31°C. Submerged rice plantations are known as cheks and are flooded in several stages. First, the field is flooded with water to a depth of 15-20cm for three to four days. After around a week, the process is repeated, but this time the water level is raised to 30-35cm. For the next five to six months, until the rice reaches maturity, the water level in the paddy field must be monitored daily. It is estimated that 4,000 litres of water are required for each kilo of rice produced.

Rice cultivation in Kazakhstan is most widespread in Kyzylorda Region, which grows around 90% of the country’s rice, while in Kyrgyzstan rice is mostly cultivated in the south of the country, in Jalal-Abad and Osh Oblasts. In both countries, rice production began in the early 1890s, but few people today are aware that rice was originally introduced and actively cultivated by Dungan farmers. The Dungans were Chinese Muslims of Hui origin who migrated to what is now Central Asia from western China between 1862 and 1877, following the defeat of the Hui rebellion against the Qing Empire. They pioneered rice production in Semirechye, a region covering much of present-day south-eastern Kazakhstan and north-eastern Kyrgyzstan.

Traditionally, the Dungans practised arable farming, horticulture and raising livestock, but they had also long been specialists in rice cultivation. After their migration, the only land made available to the Dungan people for farming was in a marshy area where nothing but rushes grew. Initially dismayed by their situation, the migrants were quick to identify the advantages. The hot, damp climate in this region was ideal for rice cultivation and they had brought seeds with them from China. The Dungans transformed the area into flourishing rice fields and over time they established a number of villages nearby, mainly on the border between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. They thus had an enormous economic impact on the development of the region, since the price of rice and other essential foodstuffs fell significantly following their arrival in Semirechye.

In Soviet times the Dungan community developed rapidly, largely due to the cultivation of rice. Thus, in 1924, the Dungans founded the settlement of Milyanfan (meaning ‘rice valley’) in Chuy Oblast, Kyrgyzstan, which became famous throughout the Soviet Union for its abundant harvests. The first Dungan rice farmers worked in very tough conditions, with primitive tools that only remotely resembled ploughs and hoes. They had to devise their own irrigation system for use in the paddy fields.

Once the Soviet regime became established and collective farms were set up, the Dungans acquired their first heavy equipment in the form of tractors. These were produced at the Red Progress factory in Tokmak, Ukraine, with the country’s first tractors rolling off the production line in 1923. Nevertheless, during virtually the entire period of the USSR’s existence the rice seeds or seedlings were planted as they had always been – by hand, the planters kneeling in the mud.

During the First World War, on the cereal and vegetable producing Dungan collective farms in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, female workers completely replaced their male counterparts who were away at the front. Across the Soviet Union, the workforce in the fields was largely made up of women and older children. Female field brigades were formed which started work at sunrise and continued deep into the night. Many Dungan women became tractor drivers and combine operators during the war, something that would previously have been unthinkable for Muslim women.

In 1944 the newspaper Soviet Kirghizia ran an article in which it claimed:
‘After fulfilling all the government demands for supplies ahead of schedule last year, the women of the Hunchi and Comintern Collective Farms have declared that this year they will provide the country and the frontline with even more agricultural production, thus bringing us ever closer to victory over the enemy through their labour.’
However, the fine words and noisy slogans concealed a reality in which the heroic women were in fact forced labourers with no alternative. If one of them had dared to refuse to go out into the fields or had tried to take a day off, her fate would have been sealed – her children would have been taken away and at best she would have been charged with betrayal of the motherland and condemned to spend the rest of her life in a labour camp.

There is no agricultural labour more gruelling than rice cultivation; the work demands tremendous endurance, but during the Soviet period it was the job of women and children. They would spend 12 to 14 hours a day in the fields, under the blazing sun or in pouring rain, kneeling waist deep in water and suffering terribly from the mosquitoes that were a constant scourge of the rice paddies. It didn’t matter if someone was ill or pregnant, all the women worked in the rice fields for five or six months every year until the crop was mature.

‘Because that was the times we were living in and that’s what we had to do’, the women I talked to explained, speaking with one voice.

In answer to my naïve question, ‘But didn’t you try to change jobs?’, the women replied in bewilderment, ‘But who would have allowed that?’

Who, indeed, would have allowed collective farm workers to leave the fields? The head of the collective farm? The state? No-one would have permitted it. In the ‘land of advanced socialism’ collective farm workers had no more rights than serfs. Right up until 1974, to prevent them from running away to the cities, they were not entitled to an ‘internal passport’, without which it was impossible to obtain a local residence permit. Yet passports were introduced for the rest of the population in 1932. Collective farm workers were effectively deprived of freedom of movement. Furthermore, they didn’t receive wages – instead of money, the collective farm paid them in kind, with food, a system that persisted until 1966.

Zulfiya Imyarova, Department of Social Sciences, Educational Program of International Relations and Political Science, Narxoz University