Hello and welcome to the conversation from the BBC World Service.
This is the programme that celebrates the richness and diversity of women's lives and experiences around the world.
I'm Dashiani Navanayagam.
I'm also a massive fan of rice.
I eat it almost every day and I'm not the only one.
Three and a half billion of us worldwide consume it and it's women who are largely responsible for growing it.
But rice is also a food staple that faces increasing challenges to produce due to climate change.
So my guests today are Ranjita Puskar, a social economist in India for the International Rice Research Institute.
She works on innovations to improve the outcomes for women in agriculture.
Dr. Pauline Shivange, an agronomist in Tanzania, whose research focuses on the management of natural resources
for improved crop productivity in Africa and Southeast Asia.
Ranjita and Pauline, a very warm welcome to the conversation.
Hello.
Thank you very much.
Hello, Desi.
Thank you.
Now, some of us might not know just how varied this crop is.
So Pauline, you're an agronomist.
Can you tell us a little bit about the history of rice and also how many varieties of it there are?
I may not be able to tell you the number of varieties there are.