Rice

Rice (Oryza sativa), grain-yielding annual plant of the grass family (Graminae). It is grown chiefly in southern and eastern Asia, where it is the staple food of hundreds of millions of people. Rice needs hot, moist conditions to grow, which historically made it highly dependent on monsoon rainfall. Improved irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides, and the development of improved varieties have enormously increased the yield. Machinery for planting and harvesting rice is used in the United States and parts of South America, but in Asia rice farming uses hand labor. Rice has a reasonable nutrient value, but when brown rice is “polished” (to make white rice), much of its vitamin B₁ content is lost.