The curious: Rice, how it came to be and its botanical name.

Rice, as we all know, is one of the most consumed edible resources here on earth. The formidable cereal grain is the seed of the grass species Oryza sativa (Asian rice) or Oryza glaberrima (African rice). Like I said earlier, the cereal grain is the most
widely consumed staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in all of Asia and Partial Africa. It is the agricultural commodity with the
third-highest worldwide production, after sugarcane and maize, according to FAOSTAT data in 2012.
Since a large portion of maize crops are grown for purposes other than human consumption, rice is the most important grain with regard to human nutrition and caloric intake, providing more than one fifth of the calories consumed worldwide by humans.
The Chinese as we all know brought many discoveries to the world, one of which is silk and rice. The Chinese legends attribute the domestication of rice to Shennong , the legendary Emperor of China and inventor of Chinese agriculture.
Genetic evidence has shown that rice
originates from a single domestication 8,200– 13,500 years ago in the Pearl River valley region of China.
Previously, archaeological evidence had suggested that rice was domesticated in the Yangtze River valley region in China. From East Asia, rice was spread to Southeast and South Asia. Oryza sativa as it is botanically called was introduced to Europe through Western Asia, and to the Americas through European colonization.
It was also recorded that rice was first cultivated in America by African slaves.