The Hindu Business Line : Crisis in rice: Tackling climate change holds the key

“A flood resistant breed created from a rice variety developed in ancient India is able survive up to 17 days of total submergence and will be available to producers next year,” a Reuters report said.

Quoting the Director-General of the International Rice Research Institute, Mr Robert Zeigler, the report added that farmers have seen its performance in Bangladesh under real world flood conditions and they are clamouring for the seeds. No doubt, a creditable achievement for rice farmers the world over. But will this breakthrough be able to stem the growing crisis in the global rice economy?

Rice is the staple food for half the people of this planet. And critically, 90 per cent of the world’s rice production and consumption takes place in Asia — with around 200 million rice farmers producing the crop to feed half the global population. Being a crop of the tropics, the agro-climatic conditions required for growing rice is vastly different from most other crops. In stark contrast to other temperate food crops, one kilogram of rice requires 5,000 litres of water. Not only that, the requirements of fertiliser and pesticide have grown considerably after the introduction of the Green Revolution and the extension of high-yielding varieties like IR8.

Despite the enormous appetite for huge amounts to raw materials, the Green Revolution helped to stave off a food crisis across the world, mainly in the poorer countries of the East. By the 1990s rice yields in India had grown to six tonnes per hectare up from the two tonnes of the 1960s. The surging production had also pushed down rice price to $200 per tonne in 2001, down from $550 per tonne during the seventies.

Another crisis

But now, 40 years after the Green Revolution, another food crisis is looming large over the world. With the surging growth story from India, China and other Asian countries gaining momentum, the demand for foodgrains are expected rise by 50 per cent in the next 25 years.

With better purchasing power backed by real demand, average price of rice have doubled in the last six years. But rice yields have remained stagnant for quite some time. And there is every possibility that the Asian rice crisis would spill over into the global economy.

Sadly, the pressure is beginning to tell on the global environment, especially in the tropics where most of the rice is grown and consumed. As global warming becomes a reality, agro-climatic conditions are beginning to change and sinister signs are beginning to emerge over agriculture across the world.

The earth is warming, snow caps are melting, rainfall patterns are changing and groundwater levels are receding at an accelerated pace. One of the early casualties of this cataclysmic change is found in the availability of water and its impact is beginning to manifest on one of the crops which requires huge amounts of water – rice. And this spells bad news for rice farmers and consumers.

The flood resistant rice variety, which can survive under water is expected to provide succour to rice farmers in countries like Bangladesh where the scourge of floods are a recurrent part of life. But will it provide respite from the rapid changes in environment and global warming?

Reports suggest that global warming and resultant rise in sea waters could inundate over 40 per cent of Bangladesh with sea water — which is definitely not conducive to growing rice. Millions of farmers all across South East Asia would be confronting similar fate. Not that the rising sea levels and melting polar ice caps are a foregone conclusion.

But the world seems to be persistently working towards it. Reports also suggest that rice farmers in Punjab have been tapping groundwater from increasing depths: from 60-70 feet a decade ago to over 300-400 feet today. Purloining of water for growing industrial use, for power generation and water pollution are other factors that will add to the woes of the rice farmers. The sky-rocketing price of crude and its impact on global fertiliser prices have also taken the cost of cultivation far above the Green Revolution days.

Independent studies have shown that the demand for rice is expected to grow by 50 per cent from the current levels by 2030. But the world does not seem capable of meeting the growth requirements of today. It is estimated that that an additional 55-70 million hectares of additional land will have to be brought under cultivation in the next 3-4 years to maintain global stocks at their current level. Instead, we seem to be poised to lose more rice harvests to global warming and growing salinity. Let alone the potential demand growth by 50 per cent two decades from now, the more pressing question is will we be able to maintain the production and rice stocks at their current levels.

The answer to the imminent crisis emanates from two fronts — constructively tackling the growing menace of global warming and ushering in ground breaking technology to increase production.

Little seems to have emerged from the multilateral negotiations on global warming right from the Kyoto protocol to the Bali meeting. The technology front also offers little hope at the moment.

C4 strain

Scientists are working on a new strain of C4 rice that could boost rice production by as much as 50 per cent, while potentially reducing the need for excessive water and fertilisers. The unique C4 rice is expected to behave like corn and other plants that perform photosynthesis much more efficiently involving four carbon atoms — unlike the conventional rice strains which use three carbon atoms.

But significantly, the new strain is a genetically modified crop for which global acceptance is still extremely limited. And even if it finds acceptance in the years ahead, it has long way to go from experimental laboratories to successive field trials before being tried in real-world conditions.

Still, all these may not mean much to India. The country has transformed itself from a net rice importer to an exporter — sending abroad as much as 4.5 million tonnes annually.

However, despite the surplus production and self-reliance, India’s rice production is also critically linked to its long and vast coastline, where much of its cultivation takes place. Global warming and rising sea levels is as big a threat to India as it is other low lying regions of Asia and the world.

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