-Gui Zhuang's "Looking at the Harvest of the Family"
Debate on the Origin of Rice: China or Indian?
In Asia, "rice" and "food" can be regarded as synonyms. About 90% of the world's rice is produced in Asia, and it is concentrated in East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia. But the origin of rice has been a controversial topic for a hundred years.
The origin of rice is of great significance to biologists and humanists. Biologists hope that by determining the origin of crops, they can find out their original cultivation types and wild related species, so that these valuable genetic resources can be easily used to improve crop varieties and improve yield and quality. Humanities scholars hope to construct the narrative of human history and national culture through the study of the origin of crops, and even use it as a public opinion weapon to show patriotism and nationalism. 100 years ago, scholars from all over the world used more and more advanced means and research methods to have a heated debate on the origin of rice. At first, Indian prevailed, and then China gradually gained the upper hand. Although Thailand and South Korea joined the melee midway, China finally won.
In the late 20th century, molecular biology technology gradually became popular and became a new means of biological taxonomy and biogeography research. At first, biologists mainly used protein for analysis, but DNA analysis came from behind and became the most commonly used method. The final conclusion is that rice originated in China, and it has been developed in both the "primary center" in China and the "secondary center" in India. This is the most reliable conclusion about the origin of rice that we know at present.
"Asian food"
(Planting distribution and consumption of rice)
According to the data of USDA, in 20 16-20 17, eight countries in Asia, China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Viet Nam, Kippu village, Thailand and Japan consumed 3180,000 tons of rice, which was close to 66% of the global consumption. Correspondingly, the top ten rice producers in the world also produce nearly 89% of the world's rice in Asia, especially in East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia. China is the country that produces, consumes and imports the most rice in the world.
China's rice planting is mainly concentrated in three dominant producing areas: the dominant rice areas in the Northeast Plain, the dominant rice areas in the Yangtze River Basin and the dominant rice areas in the Southeast Coast.
On the Classification of Treasure of Things.
(Types and seasonality of rice)
Legend has it that more than 4,000 years ago, the Chinese nation had a saint named Shennong. In order to find plants that can be used as food, he experienced the danger of "tasting real herbs to find bitterness" and "meeting 70 poisons a day". Finally, in the vast wilderness, he chose five kinds of grains, namely millet, millet, rice, wheat and rice, before he began to have them. " Among them "rice" is rice, commonly known as rice. In Shang Dynasty, rice was also listed as the last of the five grains, but in Northern Song Dynasty, it had already jumped to the top of the five grains. Today, as the largest grain crop in China, rice accounts for about 30% of the national grain output. Rice is mainly composed of rice husk and brown rice. Brown rice is obtained by removing rice husk with a husker, and the endosperm left by rice husk and exoembryo is rice that people eat.
According to different growth periods, rice can be divided into three categories: early rice, middle rice and late rice. In the national standard of grain and oil quality in China, rice is divided into three categories according to its grain shape and rice quality: indica rice, japonica rice and glutinous rice. In addition, according to different seed production methods, rice can be divided into conventional rice and hybrid rice.
(1) Early, Middle and Late Rice
According to the different sowing date, growth period and maturity period of rice, rice can be divided into three categories: early rice, middle rice and late rice. Generally, the growth period of early rice is 90- 120 days, middle rice 120- 150 days, and late rice 150 days or more. Due to the different climatic conditions in different regions, their sowing dates and harvest seasons are also very different.
(2) Indica rice, japonica rice and glutinous rice
Indica rice has the characteristics of heat resistance, moisture resistance, strong light resistance and cold avoidance. The growth period is short, and it can mature many times a year in places with long frost-free period. It is planted in tropical and subtropical areas in southern China. The grain strength is small, the compression resistance is poor, broken rice is easy to produce during processing, the rice yield is low, the rice quality is swollen and the viscosity is small.
Japonica rice has the characteristics of cold tolerance, low light tolerance and high temperature avoidance, with high grain strength, good pressure resistance, high rice yield, low expansion and high viscosity. Japonica rice planting in China is mainly distributed in the northern japonica rice area north of Huaihe River, the Jianghuai japonica rice area with Jiangsu Province as the core and the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau japonica rice area with Yunnan Province as the core, among which the northern japonica rice area includes the northeast japonica rice area, the northern japonica rice area and the northwest japonica rice area.
Glutinous rice is sticky, and it is planted in both north and south, and is divided into japonica rice and indica rice. Cooked rice is soft and sticky. The viscosity of japonica rice is stronger than that of indica rice.
(3) Conventional rice and hybrid rice
Conventional rice refers to the original rice variety that has been bred and purified and can maintain its characteristics, and has not been hybridized and genetically modified.
Hybrid rice refers to the selection of two rice varieties with certain genetic differences and excellent characters, so that they can complement each other and produce a new generation of rice varieties with growth advantages.
Yuan Longping and Hybrid Rice
Every year from late March to early April, when the northern spring is chilly, the rice in Hainan has already headed and blossomed. In this season, hybrid rice experts from all over the country gathered in the southern breeding base to carry out hybrid experiments of various rice varieties, and then brought the harvested seeds back to various places for sowing. This tradition, which lasted for nearly half a century, is called "southern breeding species", and this group of people also have the same nickname-migratory bird scientists.
Such a huge rice research is unique in the world. Because flour is the staple food in most parts of the world, China, with a population of 654.38+0.3 billion, is one of the few countries where rice is the staple food.
Hybrid rice is called "the fifth invention" of China. When it is mentioned, people will think of Yuan Longping, who is called "the father of hybrid rice".
2065438+On September 25th, 2009, Yuan Longping, winner of "Medal of the Republic of China", a special report of CCTV series "The Republic of China Will Never Forget". He devoted all his life to the research, application and popularization of hybrid rice technology, and created a super hybrid rice technology system, which made outstanding contributions to China's food security, agricultural science development and world food supply, and also made China's hybrid rice technology always in the leading position in the world.
In 1950s, Yuan Longping first engaged in the research and teaching of sweet potato breeding, but at that time, the country was short of food, so it turned to rice breeding, which was most needed by the country. 196 1 One day in July, Yuan Longping selected seeds in the experimental field and accidentally found a rice that stood out from the crowd. Spikes are large and full, with as many as 230 grains. After careful calculation, using it as seed, the yield per mu of rice will reach 1000 kg, while the high-yield rice at that time was only five or six hundred kg.
Inspiration comes suddenly, but the road to research is long. After 9 years, the "three-line matching method" of hybrid rice was finally successful, which increased the yield by about 20% compared with conventional rice, and achieved a historic breakthrough in hybrid rice. Since then, the research team led by Yuan Longping has successively broken through the problem of super-high-yield rice breeding, and the five-stage goals of super rice yield of 700 kg, 800 kg, 900 kg, 1000 kg and 1 100 kg per mu have all been completed; In 20 19, the yield per mu of super rice broke through the 1200 kg mark in a large area.
In 20 16, Yuan Longping led a team to challenge "sea rice" and conducted experiments in five types of saline-alkali land areas in Xinjiang, Shandong, Zhejiang, Heilongjiang and Shaanxi.
Japonica rice in the north and indica rice in the south crisscross.
(Rice circulation)
Rice is the main rice in China. In trade, the eastern coastal area has changed from the main rice producing area to the main selling area. With the increase of rice consumption areas all over the country, the rice circulating from the eastern and central regions to the northwest and north China is increasing, and the rice imported from large and medium-sized cities is gradually expanding due to the increase of floating population. The circulation of rice is generally a staggered pattern of "transporting japonica rice to the north, transporting medium indica rice to the east, and transporting medium indica rice to the north". Among them, Jiangsu-Anhui japonica rice producing areas and Jiangxi-Hunan japonica rice producing areas have formed a purchase and sale relationship with the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, while the main japonica rice producing areas in the three northeastern provinces have formed a purchase and sale relationship with the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Yangtze River Delta main selling areas, and the rice prices between the two major purchasing and selling areas are interactive.
skill
Wuchang Rice, produced in wuchang city, Heilongjiang Province, was the royal Gong Mi during the Qianlong period. At that time, there was a folk proverb "Wuchang rice, imperial grain". Its growing environment is very particular, growing on the fertile black land unique to Northeast China, irrigated by snow water from Changbai Mountain, and pure green and pollution-free farming methods. There are 292 rice enterprises registered in the industrial and commercial departments in wuchang city, with a production capacity of 4 million tons. The large output did not reduce the quality.
The CCTV documentary "China on the Tip of the Tongue" mentioned Wuchang rice as the best rice, which shows its position in the "rice boundary". Wuchang rice is very different from other rice in shape and taste; After cooking, the granules are clear and full, and the oncoming smell is rich in rice, and the surface is light and shiny.
Wuchang's good rice not only benefits from the unique geographical and climatic advantages, but also benefits from the increasingly perfect rice cultivation research in various countries and regions. In recent years, Wuchang rice has been certified as "green food", "organic food", "China well-known trademark", "American Food Nutrition Association certified product" and "China origin protection product", which enjoys a high reputation in China and is exported overseas.
Rice also has a way.
(Factors affecting the price of rice)
As a staple food in China, the price of rice is influenced by national policies. With the acceleration and deepening of the marketization of rice production and circulation, rice prices are not only affected by national policy factors, rice supply and demand factors, but also by macroeconomic, international and domestic price changes of bulk agricultural products, cost-benefit considerations, seasonality and other factors.
(1) Fundamental factors that determine rice prices
The relationship between supply and demand is the fundamental factor that determines the price of rice. When the demand for rice increases and the supply exceeds the demand, the price of rice will rise; On the contrary, the price will definitely fall. For rice, the supply factors include: pre-inventory, current output and commodity import; Demand factors include: domestic consumption, export volume and ending commodity balance. When considering the supply of rice, we often need to pay attention to weather, natural disasters and other factors, and the characteristics of agricultural products "depending on the weather" are more obvious.
(2) National policies that cannot be ignored
In China, a considerable amount of rice is reserved every year. Therefore, whenever new grain comes into the market, the national minimum purchase price, public auction, reserve and other policies have a great influence on the rice price trend. In addition, the national grain industry policy will also have an impact on the supply and demand of rice in a certain period of time, and then affect the price. For example, various policies to benefit farmers are conducive to improving farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain and promoting rice production.
(3) the importance of costs and benefits
Farmers have to consider many costs when planting rice, including seed fee, fertilizer and pesticide fee, labor fee, plastic film fee, land and machinery rental fee. Although the cost is not the "iron bottom" of the price for agricultural products, if the price is lower than the planting cost, it will affect farmers' enthusiasm for planting, and then affect the willingness to plant rice in the next season.
(4) Seasonal shocks
The price of rice has obvious seasonal fluctuation law. Generally, 9- 10, February 12 and February 12 are the peak consumption seasons, and rice prices rise. From March to May, 10- 1 1 is the off-season, and prices usually fall. June every year is a period of green and yellow, and prices begin to pick up; July, August and September are the peak season for purchasing, and rice prices usually rise.
(5) The linkage effect of international and domestic agricultural product prices.
With the development of international trade and domestic commercialization and marketization, the interaction and connection between international and domestic agricultural product prices are getting closer and closer. The price of rice is influenced by the prices of agricultural products such as corn and wheat in a certain period of time and to a certain extent, and also by the price changes of imported rice in different regions.
Brief introduction of rice futures
On June 30th, 1993, Shanghai Cereals and Oils Commodity Exchange launched japonica rice futures for the first time. Thus, in a short period of one and a half years, the price of japonica rice futures rose three times: for the first time, in the fourth quarter of 1993, the price of japonica rice futures rose from 1400 yuan/ton to 65438+. For the second time, around the Spring Festival of 1994, the futures price rose from 1900 yuan/ton to 2,200 yuan/ton due to the impact of the country's substantial increase in grain purchase price; For the third time, from the end of June to the end of August, 1994, futures prices rose from 2050 yuan/ton to 2300 yuan/ton, and climbed to about 2400 yuan/ton in early September under the psychological effect of expected reduction in production due to natural disasters such as floods in the south and droughts in the north.
2065438+On September 6, 2009, the State Council emphasized at the national conference on strengthening food price management that curbing inflation is the focus of current work. Affected by the policy, the price of japonica rice futures in Shanghai surged back, and the price fell for four consecutive days, with the lowest transaction record. 10 10 On 22 October, the General Office of the State Council forwarded the "Request for Instructions on Suspending the Futures Trading of Japonica Rice and Rapeseed Oil and Further Strengthening the Management of the Futures Market" from the CSRC, and the japonica rice trading quickly became silent.
On April 20th, 2009, Zhengshang Institute launched early indica rice futures,1October 20th118 launched japonica rice futures, and on July 8th, 20 14 launched late indica rice futures. So far, all three rice varieties have been listed and traded on Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange (see the table below).
Table Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange Early Indica Rice, Late Indica Rice and Japonica Rice Futures Contracts