Four months ago, I saw an article on Hacker News about an experiment in Bali for growing rice without flooding the fields. This did NOT make my list of ideas for global food security and I have been meaning to write about it SEPARATELY as a POTENTIAL idea to enhance global food security.
It did not make my list because it is on even shakier ground than the initial findings of my potatoes and seaweed suggestions.
It's on shaky ground because the experiment and its findings have NOTHING at all to do with global food security or enhancing nutrition. This is an experiment in how to cut greenhouse gasses -- specifically methane -- in order to combat global warming.
It's a very promising experiment because methane is a greenhouse gas we need to cut in the short run to buy us time. It is MUCH more harmful in the short-run than CO2, but it breaks down and eventually becomes CO2 and rice production is a significant source of methane.
So we need a LONG-TERM solution for storing carbon -- which persists and doesn't break down, unlike methane -- and my proposal is we restore our lost wetlands. Peat is a known excellent carbon store, but we need to buy time because it takes a long time to sink carbon into wetlands like that.
They had some trouble convincing rice growers to participate in the experiment at all and had to give the farmers guarantees that they would pay them for any lost productivity if the experiment harmed production. Part-way through the experiment, their crops were doing so well that other farmers NOT participating in the experiment drained their fields of their own accord.
Crop yields ROSE by more than 20 percent, so on the face of it without any further investigation, this experiment is a means to grow rice in a way that helps curb global warming while enhancing global food security.
But the reason it makes my radar -- and the reason I didn't think to include it in my list of ideas in my previous blog post -- is because I strongly SUSPECT that the lowered off-gassing ALSO likely means the rice is, pound for pound, more nutritious.
I have no data to back that up. Someone else would need to look into that since I have no means to grow rice currently myself.
I thought a LOT about writing it last night and was too tired and then today, coincidentally, read about Haiti having troubles in the "bread basket" of their farming regions.
Their bread basket grows a lot of RICE as a staple. So if food shortages and food insecurity are contributing to internal drama in Haiti, using the above "Bali rice experiment" method of production may help start calming things down by feeding the people better, maybe not just by providing more rice but maybe also larger supplies of more nutritious rice.
I am noting it because the report on the Bali Rice Experiment says crop yields increased by MORE than twenty percent AND I sincerely believe that most likely the rice is probably ALSO more nutritious. So it's possible that MORE rice that is ALSO MORE nutritious may be roughly hitting that "fifty percent MORE nutrition available" mark like in the story about the lucky jaguar.
See also Nutrition and Weight Loss for more context on WHY that matters.
AND I would be thrilled to absolute pieces if someone put instructions online for HOW to grow rice in accordance with the findings. You could even tag it #Eclogiselle if you wish and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
It did not make my list because it is on even shakier ground than the initial findings of my potatoes and seaweed suggestions.
It's on shaky ground because the experiment and its findings have NOTHING at all to do with global food security or enhancing nutrition. This is an experiment in how to cut greenhouse gasses -- specifically methane -- in order to combat global warming.
It's a very promising experiment because methane is a greenhouse gas we need to cut in the short run to buy us time. It is MUCH more harmful in the short-run than CO2, but it breaks down and eventually becomes CO2 and rice production is a significant source of methane.
So we need a LONG-TERM solution for storing carbon -- which persists and doesn't break down, unlike methane -- and my proposal is we restore our lost wetlands. Peat is a known excellent carbon store, but we need to buy time because it takes a long time to sink carbon into wetlands like that.
They had some trouble convincing rice growers to participate in the experiment at all and had to give the farmers guarantees that they would pay them for any lost productivity if the experiment harmed production. Part-way through the experiment, their crops were doing so well that other farmers NOT participating in the experiment drained their fields of their own accord.
Crop yields ROSE by more than 20 percent, so on the face of it without any further investigation, this experiment is a means to grow rice in a way that helps curb global warming while enhancing global food security.
But the reason it makes my radar -- and the reason I didn't think to include it in my list of ideas in my previous blog post -- is because I strongly SUSPECT that the lowered off-gassing ALSO likely means the rice is, pound for pound, more nutritious.
I have no data to back that up. Someone else would need to look into that since I have no means to grow rice currently myself.
I thought a LOT about writing it last night and was too tired and then today, coincidentally, read about Haiti having troubles in the "bread basket" of their farming regions.
Their bread basket grows a lot of RICE as a staple. So if food shortages and food insecurity are contributing to internal drama in Haiti, using the above "Bali rice experiment" method of production may help start calming things down by feeding the people better, maybe not just by providing more rice but maybe also larger supplies of more nutritious rice.
Footnote
I wrote elsewhere about a "lucky jaguar" and how having a big cat in the area helped increase crop yields by like fifty percent, noticeable enough that locals KNEW the jaguar somehow caused it but didn't know how. Fifty percent was big enough to make the difference between not just precariousness and security but between precariousness and ABUNDANCE for all.I am noting it because the report on the Bali Rice Experiment says crop yields increased by MORE than twenty percent AND I sincerely believe that most likely the rice is probably ALSO more nutritious. So it's possible that MORE rice that is ALSO MORE nutritious may be roughly hitting that "fifty percent MORE nutrition available" mark like in the story about the lucky jaguar.
See also Nutrition and Weight Loss for more context on WHY that matters.
AND I would be thrilled to absolute pieces if someone put instructions online for HOW to grow rice in accordance with the findings. You could even tag it #Eclogiselle if you wish and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!