I remember our cook in Niger telling us that working people in the city really go for the luxury food of rice. How about that, rice as a luxury food! I probably once thought of rice as a 3rd world peasant food, but in Niger it's an imported (typically) luxury food, not much available in villages but very popular with working people in the city. It is the peasant's luxury food, poor people have their luxuries too! Rice actually finds itself all over the world, but it is grown in flooded fields which many people don't have available, certainly not much in sub-Sahara dry lands. Fortunately Coca-cola is not the only "food" item that finds itself all over the world, you can also find rice, typically imported from Asia. Although it may be more expensive that the local cereal crop it is still within $ reach of many or most people.
Photos here are the the Niger river.
The Niger River retreats and narrows by hundreds of metres every year during the 9 months of dry weather, you can see this in the first photo. In the rainy season the river widens, flooding and regaining its original size (hopefully!).
This provides a natural environment for growing rice, indeed the river bed is lined with rice patties. There is one big problem though - there's only one river.
Pound for pound, bulk quantities of the cheapest rice are about 4 times more expensive that millet in Niger. Millet is the food staple of the nation for Niger and it can remarkably grow in dry sandy fields thank God (also Sorghum and some other grains). Millet is staple/daily food for the rural villages and for most of the population. Ironically in Canada, millet is much more expensive than rice.
As I sit here looking out the window at the Ottawa river, I notice that there are no rice patties, a missed opportunity :-) !
The next time you eat rice, enjoy the luxury of it and be glad that you can afford this very fine food.
