Nevertheless, billons of people consume this ancient grain.
Archeological investigations show it was gathered and eaten wild in humankind's prehistory.
Such investigations also show it was cultivated in Southest Asia as early as 5000 B. C. in the same region which today consists of Southern China, Thailand, Viet Nam, and Laos. Rice cultivation spread in all directions to India, the Middle East, and Africa. The Moorish invasion of Spain in the eighth century introduced rice into Europe, and it arrived in North and South America in the sixteenth century. There is no inhabited continent which does not produce rice. Scientists have identified twenty species of rice of which only two, Asian and African, are cultivated today.