Maclean et al. - 2002 - Rice almanac source book for the most important e

California
Missouri
Arkansas
Texas
Louisiana
Mississippi
Rice-growing areas
Map courtesy of Dr. T. Hargrove.
consumption; most is aromatic Thai jasmine and
Indian and Pakistani basmatis, consumed by
ethnic Asians. Arborios are also imported from
Italy.
Brewing
The brewing company Anheuser-Busch is the
largest purchaser of U.S. rice, buying about 8% of
the annual crop. The brewing giant owns its own
rice mills in Arkansas and California. Budweiser,
its most popular beer brand, uses rice as an
adjunct. Rice and corn flour are used in other
Anheuser-Busch beers. Coors is also a rice-based
beer.
Wild rice
American “wild rice,” favored by gourmets, is not
rice at all; it is Zizania aquatica, a semiaquatic
grass native to the Great Lakes region of the U.S.
and Canada. Native North Americans have
gathered and eaten wild rice for thousands of
years. The early native inhabitants of the Great
Lakes region increased the natural production of
wild rice by rolling seeds into a ball of clay and
dropping the seeded balls into the water. It is still
harvested wild, although domestication in
Minnesota began in the 1950s—perhaps the first
cereal to be domesticated by humans since the
time of the Pharaohs.
Wild rice came to California in 1972 when a
rice farmer in northern California’s Sacramento
Valley planted some seed brought from
Minnesota in an ice chest. Commercial
production began in 1977. Wild rice is now being
grown commercially in Minnesota, California,
Utah, and Oregon, and in Canada. In the U.S.,
wild rice is now grown in much the same way as
“real” rice, in flooded fields, with yields of up to
1.6 t/ha in Minnesota and twice that amount in
California reported in the early 1990s. In Canada,
commercial production is mainly from leased
lakes that are seeded; the leaseholder is given
exclusive harvesting rights and much of the
harvesting is done using airboats.
Rice environments
The rice production data above show that rice in
the U.S. is grown in three principal areas: the
Grand Prairie and Mississippi River Delta of
Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Missouri
from 32° to 36° N; the Gulf Coast of Florida,
Louisiana, and Texas from 27° to 31° N; and the
Sacramento Valley of California from 38° to 40°
N. The climate varies from semiarid California,
Rice around the world 73