More than 150 million hectares of the earth's surface are planted with rice. Most of the rice fields are found in eastern and southern Asia, with lesser areas in Africa and the Americas. In the “rice societies” of Asia, where rice is widely grown and consumed, rice is not a singular object. It is simultaneously an important food crop, forming a large component of the daily food supply for millions of people, which is often considered a superior food even when alternative staple crops are available; a cultural symbol, associated with origin myths, folk tales, religious ceremonies, and cultural celebrations; and a source of income for farmers, millers, and traders. Together, these characteristics make rice an important public good that concerns policy makers, politicians, and publics. In various places, rice is even a means of artistic expression, for example, in Japan, where farmers exploit differences in the colors of rice foliage to create huge images in their fields, and in India, where rice grains are used to make mosaic-like artworks called rangoli. Last but not least, rice is an object of study for scientists, generating knowledge about rice as an organism, a crop, a grain, or a bulk commodity and prompting technical interventions to change the growth characteristics and nutritional composition of rice, cultivation techniques, processing methods, and distribution channels. Over the last hundred years, science and technology have affected rice in all its dimensions, thereby playing a pivotal role in the shaping of rice-growing and rice-consuming societies (Barker et al. 1985; Bray 1986).
