Rice cultivation in India. 19th-century artwork from India of various stages of rice cultivation and trading. At top, the rice plants grown in a paddy are being threshed to separate out the edible grain from the rest of the plant. The rice is then weighed (lower right), and packed in saddle-bags (lower left), with financial transactions between seller and buyer (centre left). Rice is a staple food of much of the world's population. This opaque watercolour, in the Kashmir style, dates from the 1850s.