Diverse grains - white rice versus wholegrain wheat?
As part of the Diverse Communities, Diverse Crops project this summer, we visited two arable farms which lie within two of the region’s beautiful National Landscapes: Shotley peninsula, and Dedham Vale. Both are primarily arable farms with a fairly standard East Anglian rotation of crops including wheat, barley, sugar beet, oilseed rape, plus onions and potatoes which grow well in the region’s light soils. But both also have key features which benefit nature, including woodland, ponds, wide hedgerows, wildflower margins, and reservoirs (to reduce water extraction from local rivers).
Whilst visiting the farms, Gaina (Barleybird), Carrie (Natural Habitat) and Busiswa, led discussions around climate change, food security and also food sovereignty: access to nutritious, culturally appropriate food grown using ecological methods. Whilst Session 2 of the project focused on fruit and vegetable crops, Session 3’s focus was on grains and seeds.
Rice and bread were the most commonly consumed carbohydrates amongst our project participants, who were from non-UK heritage. The majority of the world’s consumption of rice and bread is white i.e. it has been processed to remove the outer husks. Removing the husks also removes valuable nutrients including protein and also fibre from our diets. Meanwhile, although white rice and bread may be easier to digest in theory, the factory-produced bread using the Chorleywood process, most commonly found in our supermarkets, can be problematic.
The issue of diabetes arose several times during our discussions with the various groups around diet. In many different cultures, diabetes (Type 2) is becoming more prevalent, and the popular consumption of white rice and white bread flour, both with a high glycemic index, isn’t helping the diabetes crisis.
Meanwhile, the genetic diversity of both wheat and rice is shrinking fast. For example, wheat grown in the UK is from just 3 genetic ‘parent’ plants. The devastating impact of potato blight in 19th century Ireland is a lesson in the risk of a lack of diversity, yet modern, industrial farming over the last 75 years or so, has felt resistant to such risks through the application of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. The negative impact on the environment (and arguably on human health) of such practices is now clear, and global agriculture is under pressure to reduce the application of such inputs. Increasing the resilience of our food system through diversity is paramount.
The farm in Shotley grew a variety of wheat called Emmer this year, as a bit of an experiment. Now harvested, it will be bought by the grain merchant and blended with other UK milling wheat, its identity lost in the wider commodity market. By coincidence, (honestly!) I brought a ‘rice salad’ type dish to share for lunch, made from Hodmedod’s pilaf which contains UK-grown lentils and Emmer wheat. Not only had the farmer no idea that wheat could be used as a substitute for rice, he had never eaten his own Emmer crop in any form.
Despite a changing climate, it is unlikely we will be able to grow rice in the UK anytime soon. And shocks to the fragile global food system are inevitable due to climate change and also political conflict (wheat and vegetable oil prices soared when the war in Ukraine broke out - imagine what a serious India-Pakistan conflict might have on the price of rice). Furthermore, even brown rice contains approximately half as much protein and fibre as wholegrain wheat. Therefore, should we all consider regularly substituting white rice for brown wheat grains, as a more sustainable and healthy solution for us all, no matter what our cultural heritage might be?
Many thanks to our farm hosts and our funders from both Suffolk & Essex Coast & Heaths National Landscape, and the Dedham Vale and Stour Valley National Landscape through the ‘Farming in Protected Landcapes’ programme.
