Evolution of Rice and Worldwide Spread

From the intellectual revolution to the agricultural revolution, or later the industrial revolution, every revolution has left its mark on the evolution of human civilization in many ways. Today, one of these revolutions, let’s take a part of the agricultural revolution with rice, let’s know some stories. When did the attempt to turn paddy into a cultivable crop start? And how many people today have succeeded in improving agricultural science.

Rice or Oryza sativa became the first cultivable crop from a wild grass species called Oryza rufipogon about 10,000 to 14,000 years ago today. The two main rice subspecies are Indica (tropical crop) and Japonica (sub-tropical and temperate crop), originally from Oryza sativa. Another species of rice, Oryza glaberrima, originated in West Africa much later, independently, and recent studies in South America have also found independent domestication of rice that is now extinct.

Scientists now believe that all rice varieties in Asia, both Indica and Japanese, became cultivable simultaneously in China’s Pearl River Valley region about 8,200 to 13,500 years ago. Extensive archaeological research has shown that the cultivation of Oryza sativa began on the banks of the Yangtze River and the upper reaches of the Huai River in central China. In these areas, traces of rice or farming machinery dating back to about 8,000 years ago are found, which spread to the surrounding areas over the next 2,000 years.

Then rice spread very fast in western India or even further south in Sri Lanka. Paddy has been the main crop in Sri Lanka since 1000 BC. Rice was then introduced to Greece and other surrounding Mediterranean regions by Alexander the Great’s India expedition explorers around 344-324 BC. Rice gradually spread from Greece and Sicily to southern Europe and a few parts of North Africa.

Rice spread all over the world.

Paddy originated on the banks of the Yangtze River in China. Archaeologists are still struggling to gather enough evidence before reaching conclusions about the location of the rice. Although They may have eaten the rice grains long ago or destroyed the rice plant long ago, a tiny fraction of rice called phytolith (the hard and microscopic silica part that the plant builds up in the cells to protect it) still survives thousands of years later. The special pattern of phytoliths found in Sansan proves that the people of Sansan collected paddy and cultivated it about 10,000 years ago.

Then rice spread to the Middle East. Rice was cultivated in some areas of southern Iraq. With the spread of Islam, rice cultivation spread further north from Nisibin, the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, to the Volga region outside the Muslim world. In Egypt, they cultivated paddy on the banks of the Nile. Paddy was also cultivated in the Jordan Valley region of Palestine.

The Murray introduced rice to Europe when they introduced rice to the Iberian Peninsula in the tenth century. Evidence of rice cultivation is also found in Valencia and Majorca. The Muslims introduced rice into the Sicilian region, and rice cultivation began in Italy and France after the 15th century. The Ottomans introduced rice among the Balkans.

European colonial powers introduced rice and Oryza sativa in the Americas and Australia. Gradually, the discovery of advanced technology in rice cultivation and processing in the United States and Australia increased the yield of rice several times over.

“There is great potential in those ancient cultivars.”

In other words, the contribution of the farmers of that ancient period in turning paddy into cultivable crops was undeniable. In their hands, rice gradually became the staple food of half the world’s population.