Whiteboard Script

THE STORY OF RICE

-Did you know that over 3.5 billion people are relying rice for their daily food
consumption?

-Although most of these people lives in Asian rice is now also being consumed in the
Americas and Europe.

-Production and the exportation of rice are a main source of income for many
countries.

-Many countries in South East Asia relies on rice export for their global GDP

-But before we get into the economic aspects let's take a look at how rice is
prepared.

-Before you start to plant rice you first need to find appropriate land for planting.

-Usually land with fertile soil and mild weather conditions are required.

-With the land selected now is time to prep the land for planting.

-Farmers first plow or till the soil to make sure the nutrients are well balanced. Than
they will break soil clods into smaller mass to incorporate plant residue and finally
the level the field.

-After the fields are leveled the field is now ready for crop establishment.

-There are two ways for you to plant your rice crop: transplanting and direct
seeding.

-Lets say you picked transplanting. Transplanting is the most popular way of
planting and is currently practiced by multiple countries in Asia.

-Transplanting is the act of transferring germinated seeds from seedbeds directly

into the wet field. This can be done manually or by machines. This form of seeding
prevents weeds from growing and also requires a lot less seeds. The only downside
is that this type of seeding requires more labor.

-After the seeds are planted you must pay close attention to water levels due to the
fact that cultivated rice is extremely sensitive to water shortages. To solve this
problem however all you need to do is to just flood the rice paddies with water and
maintain the water level to keep the rice paddies hydrated.

-After 3 to 6 months depending on the variety and the weather conditions your
crops would reach full maturity!

- After the rice crop have reached maturity it would ready for harvest.

-To harvest your crop you must go through a series of procedures

-Reaping: cutting the matured crop at the waist separating the panicles and the
straw.

-After separating the panicles you will now need to thresh the crop. Doing so will
separate the paddy grain from the rest of the cut.

-After threshing you will need to clean the crop of immature, unfilled, and non-grain
materials from the crop.

-When you finished cleaning you will need haul the crop to the threshing area for
field drying.

-After the crop has been exposed to the sun in the field you will need to stack them
and store them in piles.

-After the crops are dried and stacked they will be put into bags for further
processing.

-The grains are now in their post-harvest period where now they will have shipped to
mills to be sorted and prepared.

-The mill first processes grains of rough rice by using sorting machines that strips
the kernels
-brush away unwanted particles like dirt and dust.
-Then the hull is removed leaving the grains with only bran layers on them, this is
brown rice. -This layer can also be removed revealing the white rice.
-In some smaller countries with low rates of industrialized farming many crops are
planted and harvested by hand

-In some parts of China many rice plants are planted by hand.

-Children sometimes are also involved in the planting of the rice plants to reduce
labor stress from their families.

-If children are needed by their families they won't have time to go to school and
therefore it's not likely for them to get a good education.

-Long term working in the rice paddies can result in many occupational diseases like
fungal infections contraction of parasites and even malaria.

-Mechanized production can reduce these problem significantly as people are

usually just there to maintain and supervise and operate the machines.

-Sometimes before packing a manual inspection will occur checking the product for
quality.

-After inspection the rice will now be packed in plastic bags but also woven jute
bags.

-When exporting large amount overseas containers usually include 80% white rice
and 20% paddy rice. By doing so we can keep the rice dry.

-After the crop is shipped it will become a major foods source for global food
consumption.

-When you go to the groceries store and buy a bag of rice there are several ways
you can consumed it.

-Steamed in pots and consumed with stir fry and other food.

-Grinded and made into rice cakes and rice noodles.

-Rice flower cake and dumpling.

-Rice crackers

-Rice milk

-Rice farming takes up 81,000,000 hectares of land worldwide this poses a problem
in Southeast Asia due to aggressive expansion this is a problem because this has
caused Mangrove deforestation.

-Rice was originally produced mainly by China, Japan and Thailand however rice is
now produced and exported all over the world.

-India is currently the top exporter of rice followed by Thailand, Vietnam and
Pakistan.

-The top importers of rice include Saudi Arabia, China, and Iran.

-The traditional way of farming rice requires about 3000-5000 liters of water in order
to produce one kilo of rice.

-The story of rice ends here, its important to not only see the finished product that
is served on our tables but also recognize the story of it all.