Distribution of Early-Ripening Champa Rice in Song China
- Date
- 1012 CE
- Category
- Economy & trade
- Region
- East Asia (China)
- Era
- Post-Classical / Medieval
- Significance
In 1012, amid a severe drought across the lower Yangtze and Huai River valleys, the Song emperor Zhenzong ordered the procurement and distribution of an early-ripening, drought-resistant rice variety that had originated in the Champa Kingdom of central Vietnam.
Imperial envoys obtained roughly 30,000 bushels of Champa seed from Fujian Province, where it had already taken hold, and dispatched it to the stricken regions along with printed instructions on its cultivation. Unlike indigenous Chinese varieties that needed 150 days or more to mature, Champa rice ripened in as little as 60 to 100 days, was not photoperiod sensitive, and could be grown on higher and drier ground, enabling double-cropping in the rice heartland. Over the following decades the variety spread north and west to dominate paddy agriculture across southern China, eventually covering the great majority of fields in the lower Yangtze region. The resulting surge in food production underpinned the commercial and demographic expansion of the Song era, helping push China's population past 100 million. This state-sponsored crop diffusion is regarded as one of the foundational episodes of medieval China's agricultural revolution.
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Empires active in 1012 CE
- Abbasid Caliphate750 CE – 1258 CE
- Song Dynasty960 CE – 1279 CE
- Byzantine Empire330 CE – 1453 CE
- Kanem-Bornu Empire700 CE – 1900 CE
- Liao Dynasty (Khitan Empire)916 CE – 1125 CE
- Fatimid Caliphate909 CE – 1171 CE
Related economy & trade events
- Song China issues jiaozi, the world's first government paper money1023 CE
- Peak of the Trans-Saharan Gold-Salt Tradec. 950-1050 CE
- Rise of the Hanseatic Leaguec. 1159
- The Arab (Islamic) Agricultural Revolutionc. 8th-13th centuries CE
- Yang Yan's Two-Tax Reform (Liangshui fa) in Tang China780 CE
- Great Zimbabwe rises as a stone city on the gold trade13th–14th centuries CE
Further reading
The wider story
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