MODERN RICE MILL

Rice is a vital food material for more than half of the world’s population, the importance of which as a food crop has been increasing with increase in population. Rice is regarded as a first cultivated crop of Asia. Preserved rice grains were found in China around 3000 B.C. Paddy grains found during excavation at Hastinapur (India) around 1000-750 B.C. considered as an oldest sample in the world.

Rice has been found in archaeological sites dating to 8000 bc, although the date of rice domestication is a matter of continuing debate. Two species of domesticated rice, Oryza sativa (Asian) and Oryza glaberrima (African) are grown globally. Numerous traits separate wild and domesticated rices including changes in: pericarp colour, dormancy, shattering, panicle architecture, tiller number, mating type and number and size of seeds.

Rice is the world’s largest food crop, providing the caloricneeds of millions of people daily. There are two distincttypes of domesticated rice, Oryza sativa, or Asian riceand Oryza glaberrima, African rice, both of which haveunique domestication histories. In order to examine thevariation selected by humans over our long relationshipwith rice, we must first look at the ancestors of ourmodern cultivars. The genus Oryza contains 21 wild rela-tives of the domesticated rices .The genus is divided into four species complexes: the O. sativa, O. officialis, O. ridelyi and O. granulata speciescomplexes. All members of the Oryza genus have n ¼12 chromosomes and while interspecific crossing is possible within each complex, it is difficult to recover fertile off-spring from crosses across complexes. The O. sativa complex contains two domesticatedspecies: O. sativa and O. glaberrima, and five or six wildspecies: O. rufipogon, O. nivara (also considered to be anecotype of O. rufipogon), O. barthii, O.

longistaminata,O. meridionalis and O. glumaepatula, all of which arediploids. Oryza sativa is distributed globally with a high concentration in Asia, while O. glaberrima is grown inWest Africa. Oryza rufipogon can be found throughoutAsia and Oceania. Oryza barthii and O. longistaminataare African species, O. barthii endemic in West Africaand O. longistaminata is found throughout Africa. Oryzameridionalis is native to Australia and O. glumaepatula isendemic in Central and South America. Given these distributions, it is easy to locate the ancestral pools from which modern rice was extracted. The African cultivarswere domesticated from O. barthii (formally calledO. breviligulata) and O. sativa was domesticatedfrom O. rufipogon. There is still continuing debate overwhether O. rufipogon, the perennial species, O. nivara,the annual species, or possibly both were the direct ancestors of O. sativa.

Origin of Rice

Oryza Sativa, it is believed, is associated with wet, humid climate, though it is not a tropical plant. It is probably a descendent of wild grass that was most likely cultivated in the foothills of the far Eastern Himalayas. Another school of thought believes that the rice plant may have originated in southern India, then spread to the north of the country and then onwards to China. It then arrived in Korea, the Philippines (about 2000 B. C.) and then Japan and Indonesia (about 1000 B. C.). When Alexander the Great invaded India in 327 B. C., it is believed that he took rice back to Greece. Arab travelers took it to Egypt, Morocco and Spain and that is how it travelled all across Europe. Portugal and Netherlands took rice to their colonies in West Africa and then it travelled to America through the ’Columbian Exchange’ of natural resources. But as is traditionally known, rice is a slow starter and this is also true to the fact that it took close to two centuries after the voyages of Columbus for rice to take root in the Americas. Thereafter the journey of rice continues with the Moors taking it to Spain in 700 A. D. and then the Spanish brought rice to South America at the beginning of 17th century. The journey of rice around the world has been slow, but once it took root it stayed and became a major agriculture and economic product for the people. In the Indian subcontinent more than a quarter of the cultivated land is given to rice. It is a very essential part of the daily meal in the southern and eastern parts of India. In the northern and central parts of the subcontinent, where wheat is frequently eaten, rice holds its own and is cooked daily as well as on festivals and special occasions.