Why did Rice became the most widely grown grain in East Asia?

by [deleted]

Rice and millet was first grown in China yet rice became the most widespread crop grown in the rest of asia.

Why did rice became widespread but not millet? why was millet not as widely used in the rest of Asia?

wotan_weevil

Climate matters! Rice is the dominant cereal crop in south China, from roughly Sichuan through to Jiangsu, and southwards.

North of this region, the dominant cereals are wheat, millet, sorghum, and maize. Where maize is a major crop, it has largely displaced millet/sorghum. Overall, in East Asia, there are roughly equal areas growing rice, (wheat + barley), and (maize + millet + sorghum). Rice yields are higher per hectare, and rice is a bigger crop by weight. This climatic divide between rice and other cereals extends outside China: rice is by far the dominant crop in South-East Asia, and is the dominant cereal crop in South Asia. Other cereals dominate in Central Asia, Western Asia, and Asian Russia (overall, wheat is the most important cereal crop in this non-rice region).

Since South Asia and SE Asia have much denser populations than Siberia, Central Asia, and Western Asia, rice is the dominant Asian cereal. The general equation is wet + warm = rice, and where it is very wet + very warm, it is often possible to grow two rice crops per year, further increase the total rice grown per hectare.

If wheat, barley, and maize didn't exist, millet and sorghum would be far more important crops in Asia and Europe. As it is, when wheat and barley reached East Asia, they partly displaced millet and sorghum, but not rice. When maize arrived during the late Ming, it did the same. Where conditions suited millet and sorghum better than wheat, barley, or maize, millet and sorghum continued to be grown.

Today, cereal production in Asia can be summarised as, in millions of tons, (a) rice: 705, (b) maize: 361, (c) wheat: 328, (d) millet + sorghum: 22, (e) barley: 21, (f) rye: 1.5, (g) buckwheat: 1.3, and (h) other cereals: 7.5. (Buckwheat, which is not a cereal, is included here as an honorary cereal since it plays a similar culinary role.)

For some nice maps showing cereal production in China, see

For a worldwide data on crops, see