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Guyanese Rice and Sugar

Agricultural region

⚠ TWO CROPS THAT EXPLAIN THE COUNTRY. SUGAR built it: Dutch then British plantations on drained polder, worked first by enslaved Africans and then by indentured Indians, with GUYSUCO and the estates remaining the largest employer into the twenty-first century until the closures of 2017 emptied estate villages. DEMERARA SUGAR takes its name from the county and its river. RICE followed indenture: Indian labourers who finished their contracts took land and grew rice, and the Essequibo and Berbice coasts became a rice economy that now feeds the Caribbean. ⚠ BOTH ARE GROWN BELOW SEA LEVEL on land that must be drained continuously, which makes the whole food system an engineering problem.

Atlas — where and when

Where in the world

Communities and languages

Languages: English

What is recorded

  • Guyana’s coastal agriculture sits on polder land reclaimed and drained by Dutch engineering, much of it below sea level and dependent on sea defences and kokers. Sugar was worked first by enslaved Africans and then by indentured Indians; rice developed as a smallholder crop taken up by time-expired indentured labourers. Estate closures in 2017 removed the principal employment of several coastal communities. documented
  • Dutch polder engineering on the Guyanese coast — sea defences, dams and kokers — which is why the coastal strip is farmable and why it floods. documented
  • GuySuCo estate closures empty the sugar villages that had been the coast’s principal employment since the eighteenth century. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

  • related to Dutch Foodways documented

    ⚠ The polders, the kokers and the sea defences that make the coast farmable are Dutch engineering, which is why an English-speaking country has a Dutch landscape.

Recipes

No recipes are filed under this cuisine yet.