The Serumpun Codex · Ferments, grains and starches
Bario rice
The highland rice of the Kelabit, harvested once a year.
The entry
- Name
- Bario rice
- Other names
- Adan rice; red, black and white varieties
- Scientific name
- Oryza sativa L.
- What it is
- The highland rice of the Kelabit, harvested once a year.
- Knowledge from
- The Kelabit of Bario. Adan rice of Ba'kelalan is the Lun Bawang's and is registered separately.
- How it is used
- One harvest a year, over six months.
- In the French Borneo kitchen
- A risotto of three-coloured Bario rice in Course III, Mountain, and Bario merah in the overture, at Osaka.
- Season and place
- The Kelabit highlands, Bario
- Conservation status
- Not applicable: a cultivated crop
- Geographical Indication
- Bario Rice, GI08-00001, effective 22 February 2008, with the certificate presented in 2009. Adan rice of Ba'kelalan has its own, granted in 2022.
- Codex Alimentarius
- CXS 198-1995, rice
- Medicinal knowledge
- Held privately by the community
- Consent
- Given, recorded by CHASS, 30 October 2026
Still to be confirmed: who shared it with Serumpun.
Sources
- Borneo Post, 2019
- Bernama, 2026
- Curtin University
- Borneo Post, on Sarawak's GI certificates
- The Star, 2026, on Adan rice
- Tay Pek San, Legal Protection of Geographical Indications as a Means to Foster Social and Economic Development in Malaysia, in Calboli and Ng-Loy (eds), Geographical Indications at the Crossroads of Trade, Development, and Culture, Cambridge University Press, 2017
Added to the Codex on 1 November 2026. Sources last checked on 1 November 2026.
Anyone may cook with this knowledge, commercially too, provided the community it comes from is credited by name. To correct or withdraw this entry, write to the Custodian at connect@chefjameswon.com.
How to cite this entry
Serumpun Sarawak (2026) ‘Bario rice’, The Serumpun Codex, ed. James Won. Available at: https://www.chefjameswon.com/serumpun/codex/bario-rice/ (sources checked 1 November 2026).
Quote any entry with this citation, and name the community whose knowledge it is.