1Rice is the most important crop for human consumption and forms the basis of the diet of about half the world’s population. Although there are consumers in all continents, most of them are concentrated in Asia, where the average annual consumption exceeds 100 kg per capita (Costa 2017, 50). Asian rice fields occupy approximately 86% of the world rice area, which corresponds to more than 146 million hectares, producing 90% of the planet’s rice, about 705 million tons per year. In the global context, the role of European rice production is modest, occupying about 630 thousand hectares, which produce little more than 4 million tons per year (FAO 2020). Even so, in some Southern European countries, rice farming has become an important agricultural activity. Starting from the analysis of Portugal, this study aims to contribute to identify the circumstances that have made the cultivation of this tropical plant possible in the agroecological conditions that, between the eighteenth and the twenty-first centuries, have characterised the Mediterranean region.

2In recent decades, rice production in Portugal has been the second largest of all national cereal crops, after maize, the average per capita consumption in Portugal being the highest in Europe, at over 17 kg/year (Oliveira et al. 2019, 1210-1215). Historically, the Portuguese contributed to the global spread of rice, notably through the introduction of Asian varieties (Oryza Sativa L.) on the west coast of Africa in the sixteenth century (Gilbert 2015, 212-228), which from here supported the expansion of cultivation to the Americas. At the same time, a recent study argues that African rice (Oryza Glaberrima Steud) was also introduced to Europe and the Americas as a result of the flow of people, technology and seeds that transoceanic travel provided (Carmo et al. 2020). However, despite the recognized historical leading role of the Portuguese in disseminating the production and consumption of rice, as well as the importance of this cereal in the Portuguese diet, paradoxically, historiography lacks a long-term analysis to explain this journey. This absence, already mentioned by some historians (Mendes 2005, 51-63), contrasts with what occurs in other European rice producing countries, namely Spain (Calatayud Giner 2002).

3This study of rice production in Portugal ranges from the second half of the eighteenth century, when its cultivation spread across the territory, to the present day when it has become the country’s second most produced cereal. With this long-term perspective, rather than filling the gap identified in the historiography, the aim is to identify the dynamics of rice production since 1758, relating them to the action of the government, under national policies and, since 1986, under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). As the period under study coincides with the consolidation of the modern state, which has given priority to national agricultural activities, it is necessary to understand to what extent public policies are associated with the performance of production and productivity recorded over the more than 250 years analysed. In contrast, unlike other cereals, during this period rice reached productivity levels similar to those recorded in other southern European countries. Thus, this research has two main objectives: to trace the evolution of national rice production and to assess how the government has influenced its performance.

4After this introduction, this article presents the sources and methods used in this research focused on Portugal. This is followed by the characterisation of the agroecological conditions required for rice cultivation. Subsequently, the changes in national production are examined, showing how, from the middle of the twentieth century, rice production asserted itself in the context of cereal production, and is currently the second most produced gramineous crop in Portugal, only surpassed by maize. It is concluded that the public policies implemented since the eighteenth century were decisive for the agricultural and economic performance recorded in rice production in Portugal, thus being considered successful. In this sense, the reduction in public policy incentives for rice production at the beginning of the twenty-first century went against decades of state development initiatives. In the absence of public support measures, rice farming would return to a circumstance it has not experienced since the eighteenth century, which could jeopardise Portugal’s century-old rice production.

1. Sources and Method

2. Historical Background of Rice Cultivation in Portugal

8The existence of this demand would probably be met by importing rice from overseas territories, since rice farming in Europe was of little significance, being limited to meeting regional needs (Calatayud Giner 2002, 40). Thus, since the end of the fifteenth century and during the sixteenth century, there is evidence of the purchase of African rice by Portuguese settlers established in Cape Verde islands, who would send it to Lisbon (Carmo et al. 2020, 50). Later, after the development of rice growing in British America, this region became the main supplier for the Portuguese market, which, to a lesser extent, also imported this cereal from Spain and Italy (Silva 1995, 80). In the eighteenth century, it was Brazil that ensured the rice supply for consumption in Portugal, following a mercantile policy on the part of the Portuguese Crown that successfully stimulated rice production in that territory. In this sense, since the beginning of the eighteenth century rice was the only cereal exported by Brazil, reaching between 1768 and 1777 in Maranhão alone a total volume of about 6,300 tons per year, an amount superior to cocoa, cotton and coffee (Pereira 2002, 91; Valentin 2006, 11-12). From the nineteenth century onwards, Brazil’s independence contributed to the fact that Portuguese government measures tended to encourage domestic production, ensuring the supply of a demand which was already socially widespread.

9The contribution of the Portuguese appears to have been essential in the process of globalisation of production and consumption. In fact, the introduction of Asian rice varieties (from the Oryza Sativa L. species) on the Atlantic side of Africa, where there was already significant local production of another rice species – Oryza Glaberrima Steud –, is thought to be due to the action of the Portuguese in the mid-sixteenth century (Gilbert 2015, 212-228). On the other hand, the possible introduction of African rice into Europe and the Americas, once again by direct action of the Portuguese, is currently being discussed (Carmo et al. 2020). Similarly, on the American continent, despite the existence of indigenous and wild rice varieties consumed by local populations, European colonisation was responsible for the implementation of rice farming. In Brazil, although there is no historiographical unanimity on the subject, rice production seems to date back to the middle of the sixteenth century, brought by Portuguese colonisers who had come from Cape Verde (Pereira 2002, 47; Ferrão 2005, 178).

10Uncertainty remains as to which species of rice could have been cultivated in Portugal before the eighteenth century (Custódio 2016, 174-176; Carmo et al. 2020). However, it is recognised that in the modern and early modern periods only “Asian rice”, scientifically called Oryza sativa L., was cultivated in Portugal. It is the most widespread rice species on the planet and is believed to have been domesticated in the Yangtze River valley some 13 to 14 thousand years ago (Sweeney and McCouch 2007, 952-953). This rice species is the seed of a plant of tropical origin of the gramineous family that needs specific climatic conditions to achieve full development, especially as regards water levels and temperature. Although the different varieties of Oryza sativa L. species can withstand different climatic conditions, they all require abundant water and high temperatures to achieve maximum development.

11Normally, the seeds of this rice species germinate between 12 ^oC and 40 ^oC, but 30 ^oC to 35 ^oC is considered the optimum range. Flowering occurs with a minimum temperature above 22 ^oC, but the best yields are achieved if the temperature stays between 29 ^oC and 32 ^oC (Faria and Pinto 1980, 3). This explains why Asian rice did not spread to the colder regions of Portugal. Another decisive factor is the need for daily temperature fluctuations to remain around 4 ^oC (Seabra 1938, 62). The water submersion to which the rice fields are subjected mainly serves to correct the climate conditions. It is therefore very important to guarantee the water supply during the plant’s vegetative cycle, which runs from April to September, thus corresponding to the entire summer period in Portugal. In Europe, climatic constraints, essentially low temperatures, mean that only countries with a Mediterranean climate cultivate rice, such as Italy, Spain, France, Greece, and Portugal. However, there is a need to be able to reconcile the prolonged Mediterranean summer with a high availability of water, implying that the geographical distribution should be restricted to the proximity of permanent rivers and/or the existence of agricultural hydraulic works. In the Portuguese territory, the climate also imposes some limitations, as it is considered that north of the Tagus River no longer provides good conditions for rice growing, which includes the basins of the Mondego and Vouga rivers (Faria and Pinto 1980, 13-16). However, rice is still produced in the Mondego valley and for decades it also grew along the banks of the Vouga. This area corresponds to the north-western limit of rice production in the European continent, as this gramineous crop has never been cultivated, in Portugal, north of the Aveiro region (Daveau, Ribeiro and Lautensach 1988, 1021).

3. Rice Production in Portugal: A Long-Term Perspective

12The protectionist intervention measures of the Portuguese Crown regarding rice became more evident from the end of the eighteenth century, beginning in 1781, with the issuing of a decree that prohibited the importation of rice produced outside the economic area of the empire (Martins 2005, 230). Still in the first half of the nineteenth century, the state increased its stimulus to Portuguese rice cultivation by penalising, with the Customs Tariff of 1837, any importation of rice, even if it came from within the empire (Martins 2005, 231). It is in this context of public incentive that the first rice fields were systematically established alongside permanent water courses in central and southern areas of Portugal. In addition to state incentives, the demand for rice cultivation was also due to economic factors: in production, to the high productivity of this cereal (Calatayud Giner 2002, 49-50), which was even higher than that of maize; in the market, to the favourable market prices that lasted at least until the 1880s (Vaquinhas 1991, 694; Calatayud Giner 2002, 54). At the same time, from an agroecological point of view, rice can be cultivated on marshy land where other crops would hardly be viable (Seabra 1938, 7). Finally, from a social perspective, the high productivity of this gramineous crop has made it possible for family farming, based on smallholdings, to produce rice both for the markets and for self-consumption.

15In addition, the 1916 law also stipulated a set of rice development initiatives by public bodies. These included the distribution of selected national and foreign seeds, the promotion of public works of agricultural hydraulics and the award of cash prizes to farmers who perfected rice-growing techniques. Although the largest agricultural hydraulic works were only carried out in the middle of the twentieth century, the references in the historical sources allow us to see that practices such as seed selection and improved cultural processes were expanded, which would be responsible for increasing rice productivity to 2.37 tons per hectare (Moniz 1917, 23). A concrete example is the introduction of other rice varieties, such as the so called “Chinês Originário”, after a mission organised by the Agricultural Bureau (Serviços Agrícolas) to Italy (Seabra 1938, 41). In fact, it is known that in the mid-1930s, with the exception of the Aveiro region, the main varieties of rice grown in Portugal were no longer the former so called “da terra” (local) variety, an early strain with low productivity and poor eating quality. Besides “Chinês Originário”, the most productive variety with a long vegetative cycle, used mainly in the south of Portugal, varieties with intermediate vegetative cycles and productivity were also common, such as “Allorio” and “Novelli”, dominant, for example, in the Mondego region (Seabra 1938, 42-43).

16It can therefore be concluded that, in addition to the autocratic measures of a protectionist nature that had been adopted since the eighteenth century, the state also began to provide technical and scientific support for the development of rice farming. The inclusion of these components within the scope of state action is in line with the expansion of public services to assist agriculture, which as in Europe had been taking place in Portugal since the end of the nineteenth century (Branco and Silva 2017, 217-244). This period was also characterised by a rise in rice prices throughout Europe, which led to a general increase in production in Mediterranean countries (Calatayud Giner 2002, 64). Even so, the growth of rice cultivation did not raise it to a level of great importance in cereal production as a whole, even though in the first third of the twentieth century rice accounted for around 3% of total Portuguese cereal production, as shown in Graph 2, and occupied a cultivated area that varied between 11 and 13 thousand hectares (Silva 1955, 66-68).

18Again, public investment in rice cultivation, which has materialised in various ways, should be highlighted. Firstly, the creation of experimental posts between 1937 and 1941 in the main rice production areas in Portugal – Mondego, Sado and Tejo stuaries –, that were attached to the Arboreal Cultivation Service of the Agricultural Services General Directorate (Serviço de Culturas Arvenses da Direção-Geral dos Serviços Agrícolas), with the intention of helping local farmers introduce innovations. Then, the work developed at the National Agronomy Station (Estação Agronómica Nacional), starting in 1941, in the selection, hybridisation and distribution of seeds with better yields (Silva 1955, 57). Finally, it was during this period that the first major public works of agricultural hydraulics were inaugurated, as shown in Table 1, whose water was largely used for irrigating rice (Daveau, Ribeiro and Lautensach, 1988; Baptista 1993; Freire 2013). In fact, the impact of modern irrigation systems on rice production has exceeded what was predicted by the experts who assessed the potential of these infrastructures. This was due to the profitability of rice production, meaning that several hydraulic projects, which were supposed to use water for animal fodder and horticultural crops, were in practice dominated by rice and tomatoes (Baptista 1993, 85).

19In this context, and for the first time, there were some years of production that exceeded consumption. However, as the lack of competitiveness of Portuguese rice prevented its export to international markets, a problem of overproduction arose (Baptista 1993, 129). This occurred mainly in the 1950s, but was overcome in the following decade, due to the increase in consumption as production stagnated. This trend in rice production is related to the expansion of other crops, such as industrial tomatoes, which competed for land and water. Despite stagnation in production around the 1960s and 1970s, during this period rice became one of the most important cereals in Portugal, exceeding 12% of the total cereal production in the country in some years. It’s noteworthy that the growth of rice production occurred mainly in regions (centre and south of Portugal) where large property and/or capitalist agriculture (Coimbra region) predominated. Several reasons can explain this. On one hand, smallholder and family farming didn’t have sufficient capital for the investment in the modernisation of production (for instance in the Aveiro region) (Baptista 1993, 130-132). On the other, state intervention regarding irrigation, especially in the centre/south of the country and in Coimbra area conceded a major advantage in those regions since rice cultivation consumes large amounts of water. Furthermore, the south already had a more favorable climate to grow rice due to temperature (Faria and Pinto 1980, 3) and thus new seeds with potential for higher productivity could only thrive there. This provoked a reordering of rice production distribution in Portugal, a subject that will be explored in a forthcoming study.

20The end of the Portuguese New State (Estado Novo) brought a slight drop in rice production which, on average, was close to 150,000 tonnes per year. This was a period of some governmental indecisiveness with regard to support for rice cultivation, but it never fully stopped, as shown by the data on state subsidies presented in Table 2. Due to the generalised reduction in cereal production, rice has not lost any relative value among Portuguese cereals, reaching a share of 14%, despite occupying relatively small areas, between 30 and 35 thousand hectares (Silva 1995, 147). Since Portugal’s entry into the European Economic Community (EEC), now the European Union (EU), in 1986, Portuguese rice production has registered a slight increase, with averages a little above those of the previous period. This increase, in a general tendency of a decrease in other cereals, raised the relative importance of rice in Portuguese agriculture even more. In fact, the European Union has a deficit in rice production and has identified this crop in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as strategic. Thus, from then until 2003, the CAP encouraged rice production in two ways: by intervening in the price of rice, which at the beginning of the twenty-first century was €298.5 per tonne, and by subsidising production, that in the same period was €318.53 per hectare (Costa 2017, 36).

21However, the 2003 CAP reform led to a reduction of the rice intervention price to 150 EUR/t and of the additional payment to €177/t (Costa 2017, 37). At the same time, the price of rice fell between 1999 and 2014 by about 21%, while operating costs increased due to the rise in the price of production factors, with the consequent loss of profitability of rice farming in Portugal (Costa 2017, 50-51). Nevertheless, even in this adverse situation, production remained more or less stable at slightly over 150,000 tonnes per year, with a small reduction in cultivated area, which was offset by gains in productivity. Thus, the unfavourable context did not have a strong direct impact on Portuguese production, not even when, in 2014, the Business Profitability of Cultivation from rice was already negative (Costa 2017, 53).

22The explanation for this behaviour can be found in the combination of two main factors: the difficulty in reconverting rice-growing areas to other agricultural activities and the producers’ expectation that there would be an increase in public aid to the agricultural sector in the short term. The first factor is the high ecological, agricultural and economic costs of reconverting rice fields (Calatayud Giner 2002, 42; Costa 2017, 53). The soil sealing of the beds, which increases year after year due to rice cultivation, makes it difficult in the short term to grow other crops with high yields that do not require flood irrigation such as rice (Costa 2017, 53). In addition, the know-how held by rice farmers, the rearrangement of the property with the destruction of the beds and the scrapping of very specific equipment that had been acquired in the meantime, can lead to greater resistance to the process of agricultural reconversion. As for the second factor, it was noted that the stagnation of rice production, coupled with the generalised increase in consumption led to the growth of the Portuguese trade deficit in this product. Producers’ expectations of extending public support for rice production in Portugal have proved to be appropriate. The data available indicate that, since 2017, rice production has received public support amounting to €194 per hectare. This can also be justified by sustaining the entire economic chain that includes, among others, the husking industry (Barreiros 2018, 17).

23In 2018, the National Strategy for the Promotion of Cereal Production (Estratégia Nacional para a Promoção da Produção de Cereais) presented precisely as an objective the achievement of balance in agricultural trade within eight years, that is, support for rice farming is being intensified (Barreiros 2018, 5). It is part of a national strategy to achieve self-sufficiency in rice by 2023, covering 80% of industrial needs and domestic consumption (Barreiros 2018, 80). Among the measures envisaged is the regulation of market prices, so that they protect national production against competition from countries that are not subject to the same food hygiene and safety standards, which contributes to lower production costs (Barreiros 2018, 82-86). Since the mid-1980s, with Portugal’s increasing integration into the European economic area, rice production has stabilised in a general context in which all other cereals have experienced significant falls, with the exception of maize. This reduction in production is particularly noticeable in wheat. Even in Alentejo, a region associated with wheat for centuries, rice production currently doubles that of wheat (Faísca 2019, 51). Thus, currently, rice is already the second most produced cereal in Portugal, corresponding, in some years, to almost 16% of the national total, despite occupying a cultivated area of about 30,000 hectares out of a total of nearly half a million devoted to cereal production (Costa 2017, II).

25In this specific matter, public policies also played a very important role in rice cultivation, but private initiative was also not irrelevant. The first introduction of new rice seeds by public organisations in Portugal followed the initiative of a private farmer in the district of Coimbra, who, in 1910, cultivated “new” seeds of Asian origin imported from Italy. This resulted in an official public mission being sent to that country. Several seeds were brought and these, among others, were then given directly to the farmers. The distribution of seeds became a regular task of public Agricultural Services (Serviços Agrícolas) (Seabra 1938, 41). Later, in 1936, a Division of Rice Improvement (Secção de Melhoramento de Arroz), within the Department of Genetics and Improvement (Departamento de Genética e Melhoramento), was created in the National Agrarian Station (Estação Agrária Nacional). This state-run organisation continued to distribute selected seeds to farmers, through a network of regional stations, until the late 1980s (Borges, Silva and Sá 1986, VII). After this hiatus, since 2003 the improvement of seeds in Portugal continues through COTArroz, a scientific research organisation owned by public and private entities. State action regarding the development and introduction of new varieties was undoubtedly important and, although it is premature to draw any conclusions, it seems unlikely that private initiative has had the greater impact. This analysis of more than two centuries, cross-referencing the economic performance of rice production with rice-oriented public policies, indicates that the high demand of the domestic market has not been sufficient to guarantee production. The viability of this agricultural activity in Portugal requires continued government support.

4. Conclusion

26Despite being part of the Portuguese diet since at least the fifteenth century, rice cultivation was almost non-existent in Portugal until the end of the eighteenth century. It was then that, based on protectionist stimulus initiatives, rice growing was consolidated in areas capable of ensuring abundant water and the minimum temperature conditions required for the full development of this tropical plant. The high productivity of this cereal and a significant remuneration for the producer complemented the favourable tariff framework. However, while Portuguese economic policy favoured domestic production by penalising imports, at the same time it legislated to restrict rice-growing areas due to the perception of this activity as unhealthy. Indeed, until the early twentieth century, rice cultivation was associated with a higher incidence of malaria, a disease that was often fatal. The result of this paradox was that rice did not disappear from Portugal, but neither did it assert itself in Portuguese cereal farming for more than a century.

27However, at the beginning of the twentieth century, a change in the scientific paradigm led, on the part of the state, to a lifting of existing restrictions for public health reasons. At the same time, in addition to tariff protection, new public policies to stimulate rice production were considered, which related not only to agricultural practices but also to the construction of public works of agricultural hydraulics. The construction of these public works coincided with the process of eradicating sezonism from the national territory, which was part of state public health measures. In this context, national rice production increased considerably from the 1930s, when a new incentive factor emerged, the administrative price-fixing of a beneficial selling price for the producer. Alongside state action, the producers’ initiative led to the introduction in Portugal of the innovations then emerging in international rice farming (use of fertilisers, new cultivation techniques, etc.), which also benefited from public support, and also covered other agricultural activities.

28Rice productivity remained high, with growth in line with the rest of rice farming Europe, while profitability remained positive for the vast majority of farmers. The favourable conditions meant that, from the middle of the twentieth century, rice established itself as one of the main cereals in Portuguese agriculture, and this is still the case today. Neither the slight fall in total production that occurred after the end of the Portuguese New State (Estado Novo) in 1974, nor, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the momentary easing of public incentives under the Common Agricultural Policy, led to a fall in the relative proportion of rice in Portuguese cereal production. On the contrary, due to the fall in cereal production in Portugal, rice production is the second largest of all cereals grown in Portugal, with a share of over 15% of the national total, only surpassed by maize. Between high public intervention and private initiative, the rice subsector has been one of the “success stories” of Portuguese agriculture. This research shows that this economic performance of rice farming has historically been linked to public policies for this sub-sector. It can therefore be said that it also reflects the success of these public policies. Further research can be carried out into the behaviour of the demand, of prices and of production costs and their relationship with the production of rice. This can be also done by comparison with international data, especially from other Mediterranean countries like Spain or Italy, thus understanding more accurately why market incentives aren’t sufficient for rice production to increase.