Rice

=Rice= Rice is a staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in tropical Latin America, and East, South and Southeast Asia, making it the second-most consumed cereal grain after maize. A traditional food plant in Africa rice has the potential to improve nutrition, boost food security, foster rural development and support sustainable landcare. Rice provides more than one fifth of the calories consumed worldwide by humans. In early 2008, some governments and retailers began rationing supplies of the grain due to fears of a global rice shortage.
 * Introduction:**

The traditional method for cultivating rice is flooding the fields whilst, or after, setting the young seedlings. This simple method requires sound planning and servicing of the water damming and channeling, but reduces the growth of less robust weed and pest plants that have no submerged growth state, and deters vermin. While with rice growing and cultivation the flooding is not mandatory, all other methods of irrigation require higher effort in weed and pest control during growth periods and a different approach for fertilizing the soil.

Rice can be grown in different ecologies, depending upon water availability.
 * Different Ecologies:**
 * 1) Lowland, rainfed, which is drought prone, favors medium depth; waterlogged, submergence, and flood prone
 * 2) Lowland, irrigated, grown in both the wet season and the dry season
 * 3) Deep water or floating rice
 * 4) Coastal Wetland
 * 5) Upland rice, also known as 'Ghaiya rice', well known for its drought tolerance[|.]

World production of rice has risen steadily from about 200 million tonnes of paddy rice in 1960 to 600 million tonnes in 2004. Milled rice is about 68% of paddy rice by weight. In the year 2004, the top four producers were China (26% of world production), India (20%), Indonesia (9%) and Bangladesh. World trade figures are very different, as only about 5–6% of rice produced is traded internationally. The largest three exporting countries are Thailand (26% of world exports), Vietnam (15%), and the United States (11%), while the largest three importers are Indonesia (14%), Bangladesh (4%), and Brazil (3%). Although China and India are the top two largest producers of rice in the world, both of countries consume the majority of the rice produced domestically leaving little to be traded internationally.
 * Production & Export:**

In many countries where rice is the main cereal crop, rice cultivation is responsible for most of the methane emissions. Farmers in some of the arid regions try to cultivate rice using groundwater bored through pumps, thus increasing the chances of famine in the long run. Rice also requires much more water to produce than other grains. As sea levels rise, rice will become more inclined to remain flooded for longer periods of time. Longer stays in water cuts the soil off from atmospheric oxygen and causes fermentation of organic matter in the soil. During the wet season, rice cannot hold the carbon in anaerobic conditions. The microbes in the soil convert the carbon into methane which is then released through the respiration of the rice plant or through diffusion of water. Current contributions of methane from agriculture is ~15% of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, as estimated by the IPCC. Further rise in sea level of 10-85 centimeters would then stimulate the release of more methane into the air by rice plants. Methane is twenty times more effective as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide is.
 * Environmental impacts:**


 * Socio-cultural Significance:

Asia: From agronomy to soil science to molecular genetics, rice scientists around Asia—and the world—are on the cutting-edge of research. And for good reason: the need to produce more rice is more urgent than ever before. Rice scientists in Asia and their partners around the world are tirelessly working to help farmers in developing countries in Asia grow more rice on limited land with less water, less labor, and less pesticides—and to do so without harming the environment. With the population of rice consumers increasing by 1.7 percent annually and the growth rate of rice production slowing to 1.2 percent, something needs to be done to avert disaster or Asia’s tomorrow will be bleak—even for the rich.

United States: Rice is produced worldwide and is the primary staple for more than half the world's population. In the United States, rice farming is a high-cost, high-yielding, large-scale production sector that depends on the global market for almost half its annual sales. Domestically, per capita rice consumption—including rice used in beer—has risen sharply over the past 25 years.** Four regions produce almost the entire U.S. rice crop: Each of these regions generally specializes in a specific type of rice, which, in the United States, is referred to by length of grain—long, medium, and short. U.S. long-grain varieties typically cook dry and separate, while U.S. medium/short-grain varieties are typically moist and clingy. All U.S. rice is produced in irrigated fields, achieving some of the highest yields in the world. Producers in the United States can apply seed aerially in dry or flooded fields, or drill or broadcast seed into dry fields. Fertilizers, insecticides, and pesticides can also be applied by air. California producers seed primarily by air directly into flooded fields. Except for southwest Louisiana and the Texas Gulf Coast, most producers in the South drill seed.
 * Arkansas Grand Prairie,
 * Mississippi Delta, (parts of Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, and Louisiana);
 * Gulf Coast (Texas and Southwest Louisiana); and
 * Sacramento Valley of California.
 * Long grain is grown almost exclusively in the South and accounts for more than 70 percent of U.S. production.
 * Medium grain, grown both in California and the South, accounts for more than one-fourth of total U.S. production and forms most of California's rice crop. Arkansas accounts for most of the southern medium-grain production.
 * Short grain accounts for 1-2 percent of total U.S. rice production and is grown almost exclusively in California.