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The history of rice is not known with absolute certainty. There are beliefs that rice came from Bali, Indonesia, China, Burma and India. |
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Some think that the Kachins of Northern Burma had a person come from the centre of the earth with a handful of rice seeds and where ever that rice went the conditions were fine for planting. There is another common belief that peasants found a plant growing in 3000B.C. in India in the wild and they began to experiment with the grain. |
| Bali believes that the Lord Vishnu caused the world to give birth to rice, and their other lord, Indra, taught them how to grow it. | |
| There is also another strong theory about how rice came to be. The Chinese think that it was because of a visit by especially severe floods that destroyed all their plants. They kept alive by hunting, but there were little animals left after the floods. Then one day a dog came across the fields with little yellow seeds stuck to its fur. The natives planted the seeds, with the result of RICE. | |
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These events then started the Chinese quote "The precious things in life are not pearls or jades but the five grains”, of which rice was first. |
| There was then the “Spread of Rice”, the word was first sent onto western India at about 2500B.C. Then it was passed on to Sri Lanka as early as 1000B.C. The crop was then passed onto Greece, by the returning members of Alexander the Great’s expedition to India in 344 to 324B.C. From a centre in Greece and Sicily, the word gradually spread to the southern portions of Europe and to adjacent areas in North Africa. | |
| Rice is now spread worldwide and is the most popular grain in the world. | |