Monsoon Asia: Rice, Rain and Dense Farming

From India to Japan, the monsoon climate of heavy summer rain and warm temperatures made rice the foundation of farming, diets and population density. Rice was domesticated in China's Yangtze valley roughly 9,000 years ago and later in India, and wet-rice paddies can produce a lot of food from small plots, supporting large rural populations. Growing paddy rice is labour-intensive, requiring careful control of water through terraces, canals and dikes, which historians link to cooperative village organization.

Today Asia grows and eats around 90 percent of the world's rice. The Green Revolution's high-yielding varieties, developed at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines from 1960, boosted output, while newer varieties tolerate flooding and salt. Because rice is a staple for billions, poor monsoons, floods or export restrictions can quickly raise prices across the region, which makes rice a matter of food security and politics as well as farming.