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Rice is the seed of the grass species Oryza sativa (Asian rice)—or, much less commonly, Oryza glaberrima (African rice). Asian rice was domesticated in China some 13,500 to 8,200 years ago; African rice was domesticated in Africa about 3,000 years ago.
Rice, edible starchy cereal grain and the plant by which it is produced. Roughly one-half of the world population, including virtually all of East and Southeast Asia, is wholly dependent upon rice as a staple food; 95 percent of the world’s rice crop is eaten by humans.
Scholars have generally agreed that the originally domesticated plant for all varieties of rice is Oryza sativa japonica, domesticated from O. rufipogon in the lower Yangtze River Valley by hunter-gatherers approximately 9,000 to 10,000 years ago.
The history of rice cultivation is an interdisciplinary subject that studies archaeological and documentary evidence to explain how rice was first domesticated and cultivated by humans, the spread of cultivation to different regions of the planet, and the technological changes that have impacted cultivation over time.
It is impossible to pin-point exactly when mankind first realised that the rice plant was a food source and began its cultivation. Many historians believe that rice was grown as far back as 5000 years BC.
Rice cultivation began in at least three of them, the middle and lower Yangtze, the Ganges plains and west Africa. While the best evidence for rice origins comes from the Lower Yangtze, and has been a research focus of the Early Rice Project.
Rice can be inferred to have entered cultivation on two pathways from wild ecology and human use. The wild progenitors of Asian rice are well-known to include Oryza rufipogon sensu stricto and Oryza nivara, which are native to South and Southeast Asia, extending northwards into Southern China.
Summary. Economic and Biological Importance of Rice. Rice in Human Life. Among the cereals, rice and wheat share equal importance as leading food sources for humankind. Rice is a staple food for nearly one-half of the world’s population.
Now, recent work by Dorian Fuller, an archeobotanist, and his team at the University College London, is filling in the story of rice from multiple directions using genetics and archaeological data to map the emergence and spread of rice in all of its varied production systems.
Rice has been studied in great detail by botanists and geneticists unravelling a complicated history which is still subject to disagreement. Divergent views mainly focus on the origins of domesticated rice.