The whole world, on a grain of rice...

Time of India

a day ago

.
So many of us, dear reader, enjoy our daily rice — indeed, the pearly grain is food for 3.5 billion people, more than half the world sweeping across Asia, South America and Africa. Yet, how many know the antiquity of this crop, originating 10,000 years ago in the Yangtze Valley, 8,000 years ago in the Ganga's floodplains and 3,000 years ago in the Niger River delta.
Today, China, India, Indonesia and Brazil are among the world's largest producers, the global rice industry valued at $324 billion. There are 40,000 rice varieties and 776 million tons produced annually, proliferating in pulaos, paella, jollof, jambalaya, idli and horchatas.
While it tastes simply delicious, the story of rice is a complex tale. The cultivation of irrigated rice symbolised the start of urbanism and long-distance trade in Asia — but it also mirrors brutal slavery, people stolen from Africa to America, where enslaved Africans, trying desperately to clutch onto their dignity, grew rice on the swamps of the South, enriching capitalists who resisted the close of plantations that enabled their gilded lives. Today too, each grain conveys the taste of the Anthropocene.
As global temperatures rise, rice is feeling the heat — unpredictable droughts and downpours damage the crop, higher atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations reduce nutrients in the plant, warmer nights lower yields while rising seas creep inland, their salt ruining fields.
by Taboola
by Taboola
Sponsored Links
Sponsored Links
Promoted Links
Promoted Links
You May Like
An engineer reveals: One simple trick to get internet without a subscription
Techno Mag
Learn More
Undo
Ironically, given how this plant feeds some of the world's most impoverished communities, rice is also an accused in the court of climate change — certain quarters claim the methane released by it increases global warming. This incenses climate justice activists who argue rice's emissions are nowhere near as significant in driving climate change as those produced by the indulgences of the rich West and its mindless mimics.
Again, rice holds all the ironies of the Anthropocene — its monocropping has caused environmental degradation, taking upto 5,000 litres of water to produce 1 kilogram, increasing the use of fertilisers and fire, deployed to burn stubble, raising air pollution which, in turn, increases global warming that returns to coat rice.
There are solutions though. As Times Evoke's global experts emphasise, it is vital to know the antiquity — and significance — of rice to invest wholeheartedly in mitigations and protections. Scientific research is underway now to create less methane-emitting sustainable varieties while farmers are experimenting with tougher heritage kinds and alternative flooding and drying techniques that could ensure stable yields on a stronger planet. Join Times Evoke in discovering rice anew — every grain holds a story of eras past and times forthcoming.