As a cereal grain, domesticated rice is the most widely consumed staple food for a large part of the world’s human population, especially in Asia and Africa. It is the agricultural commodity with the third-highest worldwide production (rice, 741.5 million metric tons (817.4 million short tons) in 2014), after sugarcane (1.9 billion metric tons (2.1 billion short tons)) and maize (1.0 billion metric tons (1.1 billion short tons)).[1] Since sizable portions of sugarcane and maize crops are used for purposes other than human consumption, rice is the most important food crop with regard to human nutrition and caloric intake, providing more than one-fifth of the calories consumed worldwide by humans.[2] There are many varieties of rice and culinary preferences tend to vary regionally.
