|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
In 1997, there were about 50 countries and/or territories in the American continent with a total population of about 793 million people. Rice production was reported in 27 of them. Rice is the staple food of the population in Dominican Rep, Guyana, Panama, Peru and Suriname and it is an important food of the population in Brazil, Colombia, Guadaloupe, Haiti, Cuba, Ecuador, and Nicaragua. In North America, rice is grown under irrigation in following states of the USA: Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, and Texas. Most of rice produced in USA was for export. Japonica sub-species is dominant. In Latin America and the Caribbean, rice is grown mostly under upland and irrigated conditions. It is estimated that, in 1995, about 44.5 % of the harvested area in the sub-continent came from irrigated ecologies; 53% from upland ecologies; and 2.5% from other ecologies. Both indica and japonica subspecies are grown in the sub-continent. Rice production in the American continent increased almost three folds from 1961 to 1994. After 1980, most of the increase in rice production come mainly from improvement in productivity. The harvested area in Latin America & the Caribbean has decreased during 1980-1997 period, due to substantial reduction in upland rice area in Brazil and to a lesser extend in Mexico; whereas the harvetsed area in USA has remained more or less unchanged during the same period. The increase in rice yields in the continent was due to the adoption of high yielding varieties and improved crop management practices. In Latin America and the Caribbean, it was also due to the reduction of upland rice area (especially in Brazil) and the expansion of irrigated rice area (especially in Argentina and Uruguay). The high production costs per unit of output (e.g. ton of paddy) and the declining productivity under intensive production in the continent are the main constraints to sustainable rice production. To a lesser extent, the competiton of wild (or red) rice under direct seeding is a constraint to sustainable rice production in a number of areas, especially in USA, Colombia, and Brazil. Hybrid rice technology and advances in biotechnology could be employed to develop new generation of rice varieties with higher yielding potential. The efficiency of input used in rice production could be improved with the application of innovative crop management practices in integrated systems. The continent, however, still has considerable land and water resources for the expansion of rice production. |
||||||