I now understand how varied the world of cultivated rice is; that rice can play the lead or be a sidekick; that brown rice is as valuable as white; and that short-grain rice is the bee’s knees.
The biggest producer of rice in 2016 was China with more than 200 million tons harvested, followed by India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Vietnam. Myanmar, Thailand, Philippines, Brazil and Pakistan complete the top 10. Overall rice is harvested in more than 110 countries and on all continents. Brazil, USA and Nigeria are the only countries among the top 20, Ital is the first European country on 32nd place.
The biggest increase in rice harvesting between 2000 and 2016 happened in India, followed by Indonesia and China. The biggest decline in harvest in that period happened in Japan, followed by South Korea and Australia. The top 3 countries in 2000 did not change in 2016.
According to the FAO: “Maize, rice and wheat are fundamental to world food security. Although the 2014 global cereal harvest was an all-time record, most of it was grown in a few key production areas, where farmers are paying the price of decades of intensive monocropping: soil degradation, groundwater depletion and a marked slow-down in the rate of yield increases. In vast areas of the developing world, farmers obtain barely a fraction of potential yields, owing to natural resource constraints and lack of access to the knowledge and technologies that would enhance their productivity. Climate change adds new pressures on cereals, including rising temperatures and a higher incidence of pests, diseases, droughts and floods.”
