Rice Paddies (ETW building)
| Rice Paddies | |
|---|---|
| Category: | Farm |
| Level: | 0 |
| Turns to build: | 1 |
| Building cost: | 300 |
| |
| Enables | |
 Rice Farms | |
Rice is a staple foodstuff for many people, and produces the best crops when grown in a system of flooded fields.
Paddy fields require backbreaking labour by farmers to plant, maintain and harvest the rice crops. Flooded fields do not readily lend themselves to any kind of labour-saving devices, and all domesticated draft animals (other than the water buffalo) suffer when used to cultivate rice paddies. A large amount of manual labour is also required to maintain the elaborate system of waterways and dykes needed to keep fields flooded to the right depth. Too much water will ruin a rice crop just as surely as too little. All of this needs manual labour, a class of peasants to work the land constantly.
Historically, rice is one of the oldest cultivated crops; no one is quite sure when and where it was first domesticated. Humans have domesticated wild rice strains more than once in separate parts of the world, including dry field variants that grow like other cereals. Rice remains one of the vital food crops of the world.