Abstract

                                Rice is supposed to represent the staple food of the greatest number of people in the world and being compara tively a safer and more regular crop than other food-grains, its cultivation is practised on a very wide scale in various countries in the world. According to the estimates published by United States Depart- ment of Agriculture (2) in 1946, the world acreage and production of this crop in 1945-46 came approximately to 197 million acres, and 6,300 million bushels of paddy as against 382 million acres and 5,200 million bushels for wheat. These figures also show that the average world production of clean rice and wheat was of the order of 960 and 816 lbs. per acre respectively.

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