Nepal; child eating rice, Terai, 1986

Nepal; child sits in a doorway in half sunlight, eating rice from a metal bowl in the Rapti Valley, the Terai region, 1986. In the mid-1980s, rice was the staple diet of most people in the Terai, and the most important cereal crop in Nepal. By 1989, more than 3 million tons were produced compared with one million in 1966. Four million hectares of land were under paddy cultivation. By 1988, the Terai region helped increase the daily caloric intake of the local population to over 2000 calories a head compared with about 1900 in 1965.