It is unclear where rice actually came from. Some say it originated in Sri Lanka around 1000 BC, some said it came from Greece and Mediterranean areas during the 344-324 BC Alexander the Great expedition, some said it came from the Nile Delta and European Sicily in the 7th century AD. The Moors in Spain knew what rice was, so rice would be soon be brought to the Camaguey delta, the Rhone river in southern France and the Po river in Italy.
Rice probably came to Indonesia sometime around the Portuguese conquest. I am not sure, but what I know is that rice has also become popular in North America since the invasion of Virginia in the mid-1600. 35-70 years later, rice came to South Carolina and Louisiana. Less than a century ago, farm machineries for rice reached Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Texas and California. Rice also reached Australia’s northern territory around 1914-1952 and large-scale mechanized rice cultivation started.
Born and raised in Indonesia, I have always been living with rice. I would eat it everyday, for breakfast and lunch and even dinner. No meal seems complete without the accompaniment of rice. So ingrained is rice in my life that whenever I am away from it, I will feel a slight, yet annoying, sense of loss. However, for the rest of the world, rice is more than just a staple cereal. Being intrinsically valuable commodity, rice has the power to impacts international economics, the global crisis regarding food security and also the debate about whether it is beneficial for a state to engage in diplomatic activities. Rice and humans have co-evolved, given that rice is now becoming a commercial product and creator of communities, traded in all directions from its place of origin. It has been cultivated in every continent except Antarctica. Irrigated rice depends on well regulated and adequate water supply, including the availability of canals, the building of reservoirs, terraces and the existence of laborers. All those demand the unity of the nearby communities of people to ensure the basic of food supply as rice plays important role in the lives of its producers and consumers.
Rice is always present in colloquial speech, religious and secular ceremonies, as well as birth, marriage and death. The domestication of rice ranks as one of the most important developments in history. Rice has fed more people over a longer period than has any other crop. Oryza sativa genus emerged in Asia between 12000-6000 years ago. The geographical origin remains unknown, yet it is speculated to be coming from India, south China or northern Thailand. Between 10000-4000 BC, rice began to spread to Ganges Plain below Himalaya, the Upper Burma, Laos and North Vietnam. It was thought that rice had its original habitat in the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, though. No matter where rice came from, all species of rice require care, which means there is high demand for care, manual labor, human ingenuity, organization, incentive and inventiveness of innovations. It is essential for the irrigated crop that water has not only to be found, but has also to be stored then brought to the paddies, in a secure and dependable manner. Fields must be made level with a slight enough grade for the water to flow but not too fast. Water must also be retained in the fields. To keep water moving in a controlled flow, pipes (usually bamboo), drains, pumps and sluices had to be devised. In a flood-prone ecosystem, an understanding of seasons and weather fluctuations is important. Farmers must be able to quickly raise dams and find ways to divert but not to lose all the floodwaters.
Paddy rice requires hard and incessant work, and fiendishly difficult combination of both flexibility and organization. It succeeds only if it is controlled by a society of people ready to pull together, to synchronize with nature, to obey the rules they have invested. Rice has opened the doors to technological expertise, day-to-day farming cooperation of everyone, and the unity of many hands and the creation of a good order. The intensive care of rice also gives way to the emergence of special customs and religions worshipping prosperity, including the manifestation of rice appreciation in modern societies. In Japan, Honda means “main rice field” and Toyota means “bountiful rice field”; Gohan means “chopstick” and the Japanese still adore Amaterasu Omikami the Rice God/Prince.
In the past, farmers were forced out of necessity to read and write, thus improving literacy rate, in order to be able to keep records of the rice-growing cycle. During the Neolithic era in Asia, rice used to be cultivated in the clearings of the forests as rice is direct-seeded and depends on rainfall. The puddled of the land breaks down the internal structure of soils, making them much less subject to water loss through percolation. Farmers would then start to transplant the seeds; they planted rice seedlings in puddled soil with standing water. This practice gives rice a head start over a wide range of competing weeds, disaster, natural calamities, drought and famine. The shortening of the in-field life becomes necessary due to less than abundant, limited water supply. Rice came to China in 100 BC via Korea and China. Back then, rice used to be a river-valley and low-lying area crop before it was a dry-land crop.
However, in Southeast Asia, rice was originally grown in dry-land condition in the upland before being moved to he larger river delta. In the second millennium BC, rice came to the Asian mainland through the Philippines and about 1500 BC rice was brought to Malayan Indonesia.
Continued in Part 3.
