Rice: Hegemony or liberty?

in Rachel Laudan’s Food & Empire

Few foods are as foundational to our civilisations as grains. In our previous post So… why agriculture?, we explored how grains helped establish civilisation. In this post, we will examine one of these foundational grains: rice. 

Rice is our most widely consumed food. From paella to sushi, and burritos to jollof; rice is integral to many global cuisines. The grain is the predominant staple for one third of the globe, and is central to the food security of half the world’s population. On the basis of mean grain yield, rice produces more food energy and protein per hectare than wheat and corn. This enables large populations to be fed from smaller territories, and has centralised rice’s role in government. From Imperial China; to the widespread adoption of Buddhism; to the colonisation of the Americas: rice has been foundational to empires and cultures across history. 

in Rachel Laudan’s Food & Empire

So widely distributed is the grain that defining its origins has been the subject of much debate. Even before its widespread agricultural adoption, wild rice grew throughout the tropics and subtropics of Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and Australia. This suggests the grain's ancestors existed before the split of the Pangean supercontinent 130 million years ago. Before humans walked the earth, wild rice appears to have naturally dispersed intercontinentally. Apt then, perhaps, that the grain would end up becoming integral to the expansion of so many civilisations. Today, 20 wild and three domesticated species of rice grow across the globe. Of rice’s domesticated species, African rice (O. glaberrima) is confined to West Africa. By contrast, the subspecies of Asian rice (O. sativa) - indica: long grain; and japonica: short grain - are commercially grown in 112 countries.

Before sedentary agriculture, rice was likely widely cultivated by nomadic people. Early humans, appreciating the plants’ qualities, would have carried its seeds with them. Its small grains would also have been borne by water or animals, establishing itself in its preferred environments. Rice naturally grows on poorly drained land, so its initial cultivation would have been on low-lying, rain-fed areas. Proto-farmers in China, through innovations in irrigation, expanded the grain’s territory. This would have enabled human migration, cultural exchanges, and agricultural advancements. 

Rice’s role in social development is evidenced in early China. Naturally suited to the humid south, growing it in the north required more intensive cultivation. This engendered notions of a more developed north, compared to a ‘primitive’ south, seeding rice’s role in social hierarchisation. We explored the centrality of processing to social stratification in our previous post So… why agriculture?. Rice is similarly unexempt. The social relevance of rice remained concurrent throughout Chinese history, with food being of central governmental concern for successive dynasties. During the Eastern Zhou dynasty (770–256 BCE), the philosopher Confucius concretised food’s role in social hierarchy, ranking processed foods above raw. Eating cooked white rice was considered the preserve of the ‘civilised,’ and served to distinguish class. 

Rice’s cultural entanglement continued with the spread of Buddhism, beginning in the 3rd century BCE in India. With Buddhist teachings came theocratic cuisine, which eschewed meat and alcohol in preference for rice, ghee, sugar, and certain vegetables. Its preparation relied less on biochemical processes such as fermentation; preferring mechanical and thermal methods such as grinding and heating. Over time, Buddhist cuisine overlapped with many of the cultural diets across Asia. Today, due to successive cultural shifts, the cuisines of China, India, Japan, Korea, etc., are decidedly different, but the use of rice remains prevalent in most.

In Europe, rice is thought to have arrived during the Roman era, and later spread across Southern Europe by the Moors. By the 15th century, rice was widely grown in northern Italy and Spain, and became assimilated into their cuisines. Though European colonial expansion has been credited with bringing rice to the Americas, it is in-fact suggested to have been brought across by enslaved Africans. This is what scholar Judith Carney calls the ‘Black Rice Theory’ in her book Black Rice (2002). As Carney explores, West Africans wove rice grains into their hair before being enslaved and displaced to the Americas. These seeds were cultivated in secrecy to provide nourishment and connection to home. Unsurprisingly, European colonists exploited this knowledge, and those who were enslaved from the rice-growing regions of West Africa were often specifically requested by rice plantation owners. Rice, writes Judith Carney, was “the signature cereal of the African diaspora.”

Portrait, Number 1 Man (day clean ta sun down), Sheldon Scott

Rice is entangled in myriad cultural histories. Its cultivation and processing have enabled a disbalance of power through the implementation of societal strictures. As such, rice is an evocative material when used in cultural critique. Artist Sheldon Scott’s performance-based practice looks to his African roots. In Portrait, Number 1 Man (day clean ta sun down), Scott undertakes the gruelling task of hulling rice by hand, an act his enslaved ancestors would have been forced to do. Another performance-based artist, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, uses rice in Hourglass to comment on the commodification of resources, and the power imbalance this engenders, reconfiguring the notion of an established centralised power system in order to create an equal, fair and balanced world.

Rice cultivation today is widespread, and remains essential for global food security. Similarly, in a world laboured by agricultural expansion, its high yield lends it promise for its efficiency in space. However, as with all intensively grown crops: ecological and environmental impacts abound. The solution to this might be the same as with any such systems: a reduction in size, production, and demand. In its ubiquity, rice is universally recognised. Perhaps then, instead of a means of hegemonic control, rice has the potential to be a cultural liberator?