HISTORY OF RICE GROWING

BY MELANIE DSOUZA
According to the most widely accepted theory, rice cultivation originated as early as 10,000 BC in Asia. Archaeological evidence shows that rice was grown in Thailand as early as 4000 BC and over the centuries spread to China, Japan and Indonesia. Later rice culture moved westward to the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Rice was cultivated in the Euphrates valley in 400 BC. The invading armies of Alexander the Great probably introduced rice to Greece and nearby Mediterranean countries around 330 BC. The Moors introduced the crop to Spain during their conquest of that country in 700 A.D. from there the Spaniards took rice to Italy in 1400 A.D., and distributed it in South America and the West Indies during colonization in the early 1600s. Trial plantings of rice were made in the American colonies as early as 1622 and commercial production began in 1685. Rice cultivation, a very demanding process, has shaped values and changed history. For example, rice encouraged populations to crowd together to take advantage of reliable food supply. The labour intensive process of growing paddy rice requires large numbers of people to work together to level fields, build and maintain bunds, and care for the crop.

In the United States, rice played an important role in establishing slavery in coastal southeast the Carolinas, Georgia and north Florida. For instance, rice exportation was deemed necessary for economic survival in Georgia, and as a result, slavery was legalized in that state to create a work force to clear swamps, and plant, grow, harvest and threshes the rice.

VARIETIES OF RICE
BY MELANIE DSOUZA
There are thousands of varieties of rice but rice can broadly be classified into two main groups. 1) Upland or Hill rice: Upland variety of rice is sown on hills and highlands with heavy rainfall. It is generally sown in the system of shifting cultivation. The forest on the hill slopes are cleared and rice is sown. Upland rice is less productive than paddy rice, partly because it depends on nutrients that are dissolved in the soil moisture. When soil moisture is low, few nutrients are available, compared to the storehouse of nutrients available in paddy waters. Upland rice accounts for about 15% of world rice production, and is particularly important in Laos, where it accounts for between 20-22% of rice harvest. Malaysia, Indonesia, and some parts of Myanmar, and indo-china, equatorial Africa and tropical America are other upland rice producing regions.

2) Lowland or Paddy rice: lowland rice is a transplanted crop and requires frequent flooding. It must be raised, on a level ground suitable for irrigation. Wet or lowland rice is, therefore growing in densely populated lands with intensive methods of land tillage.

Flooded or lowland rice is growing in paddies, which are fields that contain water enclosed by low walls of earth called bunds. Paddy rice fed by rainfall alone accounts for about 50% of all rice grown worldwide, while paddies flooded by a combination of rainfall and irrigation provide about 35% of rice produced. The major rice producing countries, including China, India, Pakistan and Vietnam primarily cultivate paddy rice.