Compiled by Brendan Maher
When the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization chose to dedicate 2004 as the International Year of Rice, it set as a theme, "rice is life," and with good reason. Rice supplies 20% of the world's nutritional energy and is a staple food for more than half the population. In some Southeast Asian countries, it contributes more than 50% of dietary energy. Nearly 1 billion households in Asia, Africa and the Americas depend on rice for employment and livelihood; and about four-fifths of the world's rice is produced by small-scale farmers and consumed locally.
Not surprisingly, the grain is lodged deep within the culture of the people who grow it; rice is a principal part of folklore, tradition, and creation stories. Researchers today are using traditional breeding and molecular biology to make rice more nutritious, pest-resilient, and ecologically sustainable. Ongoing work to refine rice-genome drafts (see ...
