1.
GV PAN People
0.10

2.
CU Flag
0.13

3.
SV PAN Workers walk across planks over stream
0.19

4.
SV PAN Workers planting rice (2 shots)
0.30.

5.
SV PAN Man carrying rice seedlings to paddy field
0.37

6.
SVs Workers preparing paddy field (4 shots)
0.51

7.
GV Rice PAN UP TO people planting
0.58



Initials OS



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: The Government of the Malagasy Republic on the island of Madagascar, is taking radical steps to increase the country's rice production. Rice is the main food commodity used by the island's population.

SYNOPSIS: The Government's campaign began earlier this month and for the past couple of weeks civil servants have been helping the peasants in the rice fields near the capital, Antananarivo. The basic principle behind the campaign is that everybody should help in the cultivation of rice -- even the town dwellers and those people who work in offices. The Minister of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform, M. Simon Pierre, Therefore ordered three thousand civil servants to the fields.

The Minister said the scheme would help towards a voluntary co-operation between town and country dwellers,and was part of Madagascar's socialist revolution. The scheme is part of the overall agrarian reform planned by the Government,and if it is successful it will be extended to other areas. At the moment Madagascars grows about two million tons of rice, but it needs an extra forty thousand tons annually.