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, on the Shotley peninsula, and in 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, wide hedgerows, wildflower margins, as well as ponds 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 layers of the grain - the bran and often the germ. Removing these layers also strips valuable nutrients including iron, a host of vitamins and fibre from our diets. Meanwhile the carbohydrates in white rice and bread are quickly broken down into simple sugars in our bodies this, combined with the fast fermented factory-produced bread using the Chorleywood process, can be problematic for our health.
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, in particular following the so-called Green Revolution, a period that saw the development of high yielding wheat and rice varieties that are very dependent on pesticides and nitrogen fertilizers. 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 agrochemicals. 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 farmer in Shotley grew a small amount of a variety of wheat called Emmer this year (yes, as in Emmerdale!), motivated by curiosity about its taste as a bread flour. 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. The farmer had not considered that wheat could be used as a substitute for rice, but after tasting it, he was excited about its potential. Sometimes the seeds of change start with a simple, shared meal.
Despite a changing climate, our latitude means 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? And could it be that actually, rice is the substitute for wheat in dishes such as sarma, in some regions, before rice became more widely consumed?
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.
