Traditionally, plant breeders have focused on producing rice varieties that achieve higher yields with greater pest resistance. This approach ensured that countries were able to produce sufficient rice quantities to meet basic food demands.

As more countries are reaching self-sufficiency in rice production and are capable of meeting basic food requirements, the trend is to incorporate preferred quality characteristics that satisfy the consumer's increasing demand for better rice.

So, what are consumers looking for? In the earlier lesson, we learned that quality has subjective and objective characteristics. Now, let's determine how this applies to rice.

In the following exercise, distinguish between the subjective and objective characteristics of rice quality by clicking, holding, and dragging the below phrases the appropriate box.

The above characteristics do not just depend on the variety. Quality can also be affected by:

• the crop production environment
• harvesting
• processing
• handling systems.

Therefore, maintaining good quality is the concern of all disciplines including plant breeding, agronomy, entomology, chemistry and engineering.