<P> Rice was introduced into the southern states of Louisiana and east Texas in the mid-19th century . Meanwhile, soil fertility in the east fell, especially for inland rice . </P> <P> Emancipation in 1863 freed rice workers . East - coast rice farming required hard, skilled work under extremely unhealthy conditions, and without slave labour, profits fell . Increasing automation in response came too late, and a series of hurricanes that hit Carolina in the late 1800s and damaged levees put an end to the industry . Production shifted to the Deep South, where the geography was more favourable to mechanization . </P> <P> These events can be seen in rice production statistics . In 1839, the total production was 80,841,422 pounds, of which 60,590,861 pounds were grown in South Carolina and 12,384,732 pounds in Georgia . In 1849, cultivation reached 215,313,497 pounds . Between 1846 and 1861, annual rice production in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia averaged more than 105 million pounds of cleaned rice, with South Carolina producing more than 75 percent . </P> <P> At the census of 1870, after emancipation, the production of rice decreased to 73,635,021 pounds . In 1879, the total area devoted to rice was 174,173 acres, and the total production of clean rice was up again to 110,131,373 pounds . A decade later, the total area devoted to rice cultivation was 161,312 acres, and the total production of clean rice equaled 128,590,934 pounds; this represented a 16.76 percent increase in the amount produced, with a decrease of 7.38 percent in the area under cultivation . </P>

Where is rice grown in the world map