Lonely Planet Rice Trails

Rice is the world's most important food (in calories consumed it's number one) but also the most beautiful. Whether it's dropping down a hillside in the Philippines, China or Indonesia, each step a little masterpiece of artistic perfection, or sweeping across laser-leveled 'bays' in pancake-flat Australia, it's always stunning. Every step from field to plate has a story to tell of planting, growing, harvesting, processing, trading, consuming or simply celebrating. Scientifically rice was a keystone in the 1960s 'green revolution, ' the great leap forward which banished the centuries old spectre of famine in Asia. Rice Trails tells the fascinating story.