Rice

People all over the world eat rice. Millions of people in Asia, Africa, and South America eat it everyday of their live. Some people eat almost nothing but rice.

Rice is akind of grass. There are more than 7,000 kinds of rice. Farmers grow rice in many countries, even in the southern part of the United States and in eastern Australia.

No one really knows where rice came from. Some scientists think that it started to grow in two places. They think that one kind of rice grew in southern Asia thousands of years ago. Someone in China wrote about it West Africa. Other sceintists think that rice came from India, and India travelers took it to other part of the world.

There are two main ways to grow rice. Upland rice grows in dry soil. Most rice grows in wet soil. People in many countries do all of the work of growing rice by hand. This is the same way farmers worked hundreds of years ago. In some countries, people now use machines on their rice farm. The farmers all use fertilizer. Some insects are enemies of rice. Farmers poison them.

People use every part of thier rice plant. They make animals feedand rice oil from it. They also make baskets, broom, rugs, sandals, and roofs for their houses. They burn dry rice plant in fires for cooking.

By: You Keosaminy