In the year 1906 the first person to ever plant rice in the south-eastern Australia was Jo Takasuka who was a merchant. Still in 1906, Jo Takasuka planted 35 acres of rice on the land that he had rented from a farmer on the Murray River.
The farming of rice was an economic decision because there was no law against growing it. Meaning that anyone could grow rice whenever and where ever they wanted. Most plantations of rice are found in the southern NSW, the northern NSW and there is a growing production in Queensland. Rice uses much more water than other crops such as cotton, fruit trees, nut trees, cut flowers and grass. Rice would normally use about 5000 liters of water to produce just 1 kg of rice. The amount of water that is needed for growing the rice could be a major problem because it is a huge investment having to spend lots of money on lots of water and not just the rice.
The best soil for growing rice is wet soil or damp soil, there is a lot of wet/damp soil in NSW and Queensland because of the rainy weathers. There are not many consequences for the farmers who grow rice but it does increase global warming by a whole other level because for each grain of rice that goes into the green houses it releases more gas and smoke into the world. Global warming has been a big problem over many years and there have been debates about whether to ban greenhouse production which could ruin people and farmers jobs because it means they would have nothing to sell.
In NSW and Queensland, the growing of rice is very conductive because of the types of soils and rainy weathers that they have making it amazing conditions for rice to grow. About 80% of NSW water comes from a dam called the Warragamba Dam, and Queensland’s water supply come from a wide variety including dams, bridges, weirs, ground water bores and rivers. Rice is an amazing product to sell, as it is cheap and is in almost every supermarket. Most farmers that grow rice have multiple different types of rice making more variety of it to sell which allows more money because of the more variety of rice to sell.
In conclusion, the growing of rice in Australia is a sustainable crop because of how lots of places in Australia have lots of areas with wet soils which are great for the growing of rice. Rice is grown by many different companies and farmers because of the big amount of farmers and company’s rice has filled some shelves inside of supermarkets making it a good food to sell.