Today, for many people in the world, rice is the basic food.
It is known that rice is traditional Chinese food, which first was cultivated in Asian countries. But today, it is considered as an international food, which covers about 81 000 000 hectares around the world. Because of globalization processes, rice became an international product. This product was chosen because it helps to demonstrate globalization process which has changed consumption patterns, international trade, agricultural patters of many countries, etc.
The role of globalization
From a marketing point of view, globalization presents opportunities and challenges for world population to interact and interchange with technological innovations (such as new agricultural technologies for rice, which allows to cultivate this product in different regions with poor climate comditions), foreign aid as rice or grain. The new technology of rice cultivation gives less developed countries unprecedented opportunity “to jump” through the initial stages of development. The example of rice shows that the basic sphere of globalization is the international economic system, i.e. global manufacture, national economies and the world market.
Cultural globalization
Rice is one of the main products, which caused cultural globalization. This process is connected with technological revolution and economic globalization which together create a stream of the cultural blessings. Culture includes both conscious and unconscious values, ideas, attitudes, and symbols that shape our behavior and that are transmitted from one generation to the next. So, if rice consumption patterns are transmitted around the world, it is possible to say that rice became a component of our culture, borrowed from Chinese traditions.
Shaping the regions
This problem is connected with potential regional or global instability. National economic fluctuations or crises have regional or even global consequences. Droughts or floods in regions of rice cultivation have a great influence on international trade and consumption patterns in many countries. For instance, droughts in India have a global impact on rice consumption being the major supplier of this product. To prevent this, local agricultures have to adapt their facilities to resist the outcomes of global crisis.
Rice is one of the products, which shows that people all over the world were becoming more alike in their tastes.
Opportunities
At the same time, globalization presents companies with unprecedented opportunities to reconfigure themselves. It is supposed that global market is “the same global bazaar that allows consumers to buy the best that the world can offer also allows producers to find the best partners” (Galbraith, 2002). If inflow of resources occurs in the form of credits or investments, it increases internal savings and reduces shortage of investments for the local companies. Direct foreign investments will bring technologies from abroad, thus the financial risk decreases. In any case growth of investments should increase incomes of the population, having raised demand for manpower and having made it more productive. Globalization means widening business horizons to encompass the world in scanning for opportunity and threat. A successful globalization includes the ability to think globally and act locally. A global product like rice may be the same product everywhere and yet different. Globalization requires people to behave in a way that is global and local at the same time by responding to similarities and differences in world.
