The History of Rice
"Rice" is the main cereal of the world. Classified as the same species as Grass which is the largest grass in the world and has biodiversity. Rice can be easily planted and it is resistant to all geographical features and weather conditions. It is a deserted land, a lowland or even on the cold mountains, rice can still grow up. The first rice that humans know to eat is wild rice.
There are as many as 120,000 species of rice on the planet, but the species that are known and planted can be divided into 2 types: Oryza Savita that is popular in Asia and Oryza Glaberrima that is popular for cultivation in Africa. But almost of rice grown and traded in the world market is rice from Asia divided into 3 groups according to the nature and planting area as follows:
1.
Indica Rice is a rice that has a long slender grain, named from the first discovered source in India. It is a popular rice cultivated in Asia from China, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia to India and Sri Lanka and spread to Southeast Asia since after 1000 B.E., And later spread to cultivate in the Americas. Only in Thailand, Indica rice is popularly cultivated in the southern plains area of the Chao Phraya River and it quickly increase instead of sticky rice that was once grown. At that time, Thai people called the Indica rice that came from abroad as "your rice" and then shortened to just "rice" to this day.
2.
Japonica Rice is glutinous rice. The seed is rounded, it originated from the north through Mekong River in the early 20th century. Japonica Rice thereafter spreads to warm regions in Japan, Korea, Russia, Europe and America instead.
3.
Javanica Rice is a mixed rice between Indica and Japonica rice and mostly cultivated in Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, Ryukyu Islands and Japan. But it is not popular because of the low yields.
Nowadays, the countries all over the world have developed new rice varieties, the rice cultivation areas and rice cultivation methods to increase production.
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