November 25, 2014

25/11/2014: Three rice varieties ready for climate change

Can you imagine a world without rice? asks Pia Ranada in her website report on the Rappler website today.
 
She says new types of rice can survive drought, floods and salt water intrusion – all impacts of climate change.
 

Drought-tolerant rice

"If climate change has its way, that may be the kind of world that awaits us, or at the very least, our children.
 

"Rice, with its dependence on water and sensitivity to heat, is one of many crops threatened by global warming. In the Philippines, every one degree Celsius increase in night-time temperature could reduce the amount of harvested rice by as much as 10 percent, according to the Department of Agriculture."

Rice, which feeds almost half of the human population, is already suffering from other impacts of the global phenomenon such as rising sea levels, drought and stronger typhoons, she writes.

"Add this to the fact that by 2050, the world will have to feed an estimated 2 billion more people. With more mouths to feed, limited land to grow rice and climate change, the world is looking bleak for rice-lovers.


"That's why scientists all over the world are coming up with new types of rice that can withstand the worst of climate change and still end up in people's plates."

The new kinds of rice developed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños, Laguna, using advanced breeding technology are: Flood-tolerant rice - Drought-tolerant rice - Saline-tolerant rice


Read more HERE.
 

The Global Miller
This blog is maintained by The Global Miller staff and is supported by the magazine GFMT
which is published by Perendale Publishers Limited.


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