Look at the future of the food: Saltwater grown rice

Beijing, January 21: More than half the global population relies on rice to survive, but meeting that demand is difficult due to the increasing scarcity of freshwater, which is required for rice cultivation. A scientist named Yuan Longping has successfully developed rice that can be grown using saltwater. While his rice could prevent food scarcity as global climate change floods the world, the new strain has a long way to go before it can be widely adopted.

Longping’s rice could also free up freshwater lands that are currently reserved for rice to grow other foods. Longping’s early success with rice that grows in saltwater also comes at a time when rice producers are reporting particularly unfavorable conditions.

Salt from coastal flooding and tides has left just a fraction of China’s total land open to freshwater rice farming, and in Dongying, a region on China’s eastern coast, 40 percent of the land has a salt concentration higher than 0.5 percent, according to the World Bank. Experts expect the rising waters from global climate change to exacerbate this problem.

For his research, Longping planted 200 different saltwater-tolerant rice strains at the Qindao Saline-Alkali Tolerant Rice Research and Development Center on the Yellow Sea. According to China’s Xinhua News Agency, his efforts yielded 8,030 pounds of rice per acre. For comparison, most commercial U.S. growers harvest between 7,200-7,600 pounds per acre annually.

 

Longping’s approach to agricultural innovation may determine how future generations cope with the food scarcity that could follow the loss of freshwater land to saltwater flooding.