Interesting Facts about Rice
SOME INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT
RICE
- More than 90 percent of the world's rice is grown and consumed in
Asia, where people typically eat rice two or three times a daily.
Rice is the staple diet of half the world's population.
- Rice farming has been traced back to around 5,000 BC.
- Hundreds of millions of the poor spend half to three fourths of
their incomes on rice and only rice.
- To plow 1 hectare of land in the traditional way, a farmer and
his water buffalo must walk 80 km.
- It takes 5,000 liters of water to produce 1 kg of irrigated rice.
- More than 140,000 varieties of cultivated rice (the grass family
Oryza sativa) are thought to exist but the exact number remains a
mystery.
- Three of the world's four most populous nations are rice-based
societies: People's Republic of China, India, and Indonesia.
Together, they have nearly 2.5 billion people almost half of the
world's population.
- The average Asian consumer eats 150 kg of rice annually compared
to the average European who eats 5 kg.
- Every year, 50 million people are added to Asia's soaring
population of 3.5 billion.
- Improved varieties are planted on three fourths of Asia's rice
land and are responsible for producing most of the continent's rice.
- Asia is home to 250 million rice farms. Most are less than 1
hectare.
- In several Asian languages the words for 'food' and 'rice' are
identical.
- Rice is thrown on newly married couples as a symbol of fertility,
luck and wealth.
- 65 kilos of rice are milled annually for every person on earth.
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