Word: riceland
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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French colonialism was rapidly transforming Vietnamese society in the first decades of this century. Modern French agricultural techniques were opening up vast stretches of riceland and creating a new class of powerful client landlords. French labor agents were uprooting growing numbers of Vietnamese from their ancient villages and shipping them to burgeoning rubber plantations, where the Vietnamese--the French took their names away and assigned them numbers--bitterly confronted a hard and tenuous life torn from their past. Also at this time, Vietnamese national pride was increasing, particularly among the growing class of Vietnamese civil servants who the French trained...
Since U.S. officials have been able to move more freely through South Viet Nam, the extent of damage there is more readily assessed. The agriculture of the South needs extensive rebuilding; nearly 1,000,000 acres of valuable riceland were abandoned during the war. Most of the 2,500-mile system of canals and dikes was similarly neglected, allowing salt water to damage cropland. Dredging sludge from the canals and restoring fertility to the fields will be a slow and expensive process, demanding both massive manpower and large amounts of fertilizer...
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