How a fundamental change in rice-growing can help the world

Here's an interesting snippet. Everyone knows that rice, one of the most commonly-gown food staples in the world, is grown in water, right? We have all seen photos of rice paddies, even if we haven't seen them in real life.

But that could change, if some food researchers have their way. What if we could substantially decrease greenhouse gas emissions AND increase yields by NOT flooding rice fields? Research in Bali, Indonesia is showing us how.

Rice production, which occurs mainly on about 200 million farms in Asia, is responsible for about 11% of global methane emissions. Flooded fields create ideal growing conditions for methane-emitting bacteria, and each rice stalk acts like a chimney and shoots methane from the soil into the air. 

The researchers, taking note of the old traditional rice-growing techniques used by some farms in Bali, realized that by only watering rice field when fully dried out, methane emissions could be reduced by 70% (and, of course, much less water is used). What surprised the researchers, though, was that yields also improved, and in some case almost doubled. Also, the worry that the new (old) technique would increase emissions of nitrous oxide (another greenhouse gas) turned out to be unfounded, and nitrous oxide levels even reduced a little. Win-win-win?

Changing the ingrained habits of 200 million farms in largely rural and undeveloped countries seems like a big ask. But if the farmers can be persuaded of the benefits, maybe it could happen (like the switch to hybrid rice, even if the whole Green Revolution thing was not quite as paradigm-changing as billed). 

This seems like a big news item to me, but I only came across it on the MongaBay.com website, a rather specialized environmental non-profit specializing in developing world issues. But now, I have spread it - to both of my regular readers!