Rice, considered

The Economist has an article about the potentially troubled future of rice.  It pretty much gives the grain a bad rap:

Rice’s contribution to global warming represents an underappreciated positive feedback loop. Irrigating paddy fields starves the underlying soil of oxygen. This encourages methane-emitting bacteria to flourish. Consequently, rice production is responsible for 12% of total methane emissions—and 1.5% of total greenhouse-gas emissions, comparable to the aviation sector. Vietnam’s paddy fields produce much more carbon equivalent than the country’s transportation.

Rice’s nutritional quality is another growing concern. The grain is high in glucose, which contributes to diabetes and obesity, and low in iron and zinc, two important micronutrients. In South Asia the prevalence of diabetes and malnutrition can be traced to over-reliance on rice. 

We don't get mention of the Australian success with making a Vitamin A enriched golden rice, though, which seems a bit of an oversight.

It does note this, too:

Global rice demand—in Africa as well as Asia—is soaring. Yet yields are stagnating. The land, water and labour that rice production requires are becoming scarcer. Climate change is a graver threat. Rising temperatures are withering crops; more frequent floods are destroying them. No mere victim of global warming, rice cultivation is also a major cause of it, because paddy fields emit a lot of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The crop that fuelled the rise of 60% of the world’s population is becoming a source of insecurity and threat.

Rising demand exacerbates the problem. By 2050 there will be 5.3bn people in Asia, up from 4.7bn today, and 2.5bn in Africa, up from 1.4bn. That growth is projected to drive a 30% rise in rice demand, according to a study published in the journal Nature Food. And only in the richest Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea, are bread and pasta eating into rice’s monopoly as the continental staple.

Yet Asia’s rice productivity growth is falling. Yields increased by an annual average of only 0.9% over the past decade, down from around 1.3% in the decade before that, according to data from the UN. The drop was sharpest in South-East Asia, where the rate of increase fell from 1.4% to 0.4%. Indonesia and the Philippines already import a lot of rice. If yields do not increase, these countries will be increasingly dependent on others to feed their 400m people, according to the Nature Food study.

The article opens with a mention that several Asian countries have mythology in which rice is a gift of the gods.  I would've liked to also see mention of  how the Japanese like to say there are seven gods on each grain of rice.  

And this slanderous article (I do like my rice, although don't want to eat it every single day) ends with promotion of, surprisingly, millet.  My bold: 

At India’s request, the UN has declared 2023 the year of millet. India is hoping to sell farmers and consumers on this crop, which is far more nutritious than rice or wheat and requires a lot less water. Indonesia is doing something similar for sorghum. Today only health-conscious hipsters in Delhi would choose a millet biryani over a rice one. But where elites lead, masses often follow. If a big market emerged, it would entice some farmers to switch and even ardent rice growers to diversify.

I think Australia grows a lot of millet and sorghum, but I don't know that much of it goes directly into human food.  Oh, now that I check, not much millet:

...the size of the millet crop each year was normally around the 20,000 to 30,000 tonnes, but this year because of the hot, dry summer production fell to around 8000 to 10,000t.

Google tells me we grow about 40 million tonnes of wheat in a good year.   Sorghum?  1.6 million tonnes.  How about rice?  It seems that depending on the weather, it can vary wildly, from as low as about 60,000 tonnes to 630,000 tonnes.   So, we grow a lot more sorghum than we do rice?   Yet I don't recall ever specifically eating it.

Anyway, that's my farming self education for today....