The UK's first-ever rice crop is being harvested following a record-breaking summer. Newly created paddy fields in the Cambridgeshire Fens have become home to nine rice varieties - including risotto, basmati and sushi.

These crops were sown in the spring and have thrived during this year's hottest summer since records began in 1884. The Fens is an area of flat, low-lying agricultural land and produces crops worth around £1.2 billion per year which sees the region account for a third of the UK's fresh vegetables.

The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) is carrying out trials of a range of crops for food and bioenergy on rewetted peat to see if they can be grown in waterlogged conditions.

Professor Richard Pywell, the lead UKCEH scientist on the project, commented: "By its very na

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