Southeast Asian farmers cultivate a wide variety of crops, including roots, vegetables, fruits, beans, coconuts, ginger, and peppers. Alongside these, trees and bamboo are grown specifically for use as firewood and in construction. Bamboo is especially valued because it can be put to many uses (Austin and Ueda 1970). Its seeds can be eaten, and it figures in rituals, including those associated with rice agriculture.
The most important subsistence crop is rice, a plant so old that the origin...