In the coming years, food will be produced amid the uncertainty of changes in the world’s climate.
“Climate change is upon us. It’s here and it can only get worse. We believe that climate change is going to be more intense. The Philippines will be most vulnerable if the people are least prepared,” said Greenpeace Philippines in a statement.
The World Bank lists the Philippines as one of the top 12 countries “at highest risk to climate change.” Droughts, floods, storms, rising sea levels, and greater uncertainty in agriculture were the reasons cited why the country was included in the top list.
Of the five main threats, “the Philippines leads the list of nations that are most in danger of facing frequent and more intense storms,” said Rita T. dela Cruz, of the Bureau of Agricultural Research.
Human activities including mining, refrigeration, the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, livestock farming, and rice production have led to an increase in the release of trace gases such as carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere.
These trace gases can trap heat, which may contribute to what is commonly referred to as “the greenhouse effect.” Computer models indicate that the level of global warming resulting from the buildup of these gases could lead to an increase in global temperatures ranging from 1 to 8 degrees Celsius over the next century.
“Climate change is the biggest environmental issue because it threatens to be disastrous,” said Geird Leipold, former executive director of Greenpeace International. “It will not only directly affect our climate. It will severely affect human beings and the ecosystem. We will have millions of people suffering from it.”
Hunger is highly probable. Climate change has the potential to convert fertile land into arid dust bowls. “It could also raise sea levels that would flood the fertile deltas,” pointed out Dr. Peter Usher, who used to work with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
Desolate fields and increasing sea levels may lead to catastrophic effects on agricultural output. “Agriculture is extremely vulnerable to climate change,” notes the policy report of the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
“Higher temperatures eventually reduce yields of desirable crops while encouraging weed and pest proliferation. Changes in precipitation patterns increase the likelihood of short-run crop failures and long-run production declines,” IFPRI adds.
Thus, how will rice – the staple food of Filipinos and the globe’s most crucial crop for maintaining food security and combating poverty – react to climate change?
“Increasing carbon dioxide leads to increased photosynthesis and potentially, more rice biomass. But concurrent increases in global temperatures could also potentially limit rice harvests by increasing spikelet sterility,” explained Dr. Lewis H. Ziska of the Crop Systems and Global Change Laboratory at the United States Department of Agriculture.
“More carbon dioxide could also increase the biomass of known weeds when compared with that of rice, which could limit rice growth in the future,” he added.
“Higher temperature, especially in tropical areas that are already near or above the optimum temperature for rice, will reduce growth and yields,” noted Dr. Keith Ingram, former global climate change coordinator at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
Over the last 25 years, rising temperatures have already reduced the yield growth rate by 10–20% in various regions, as indicated by a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer-reviewed scientific journal based in the United States.
With the anticipated increase in nighttime temperatures due to climate change, rice yields are expected to decline. “Our research indicates that as the daily minimum temperature rises, or as nights become warmer, rice yields decrease,” said Jarrod Welch, the lead author of the report and a graduate student in economics at the University of California, San Diego.
The report examined six years of data from 227 irrigated rice farms across six major rice-producing countries in Asia, which account for over 90% of the global rice supply.
“Our study is unique because it uses data collected in farmers’ fields, under real-world conditions,” said Welch. “This is an important addition to what we already know from controlled experiments.”
Around three billion people eat rice every day. “Even a small drop in Asian rice harvest could bring mass starvation,” Dr. Usher warned.
Paradoxically, the more rice will be grown, the more methane will be emitted into the atmosphere. “Rice production also contributes to global warming as it emits methane,” said Dr. Constancio Asis, Jr. supervising science research specialist at the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija.
After carbon dioxide, methane is the second most important greenhouse gas, which is responsible for trapping the heat from the sun as it radiates back into space. Methane is created naturally as a waste product of anaerobic bacteria (living with little or no oxygen). These bacteria produce methane gas in waterlogged soil and wetland, but also in human-produced environments such as rice paddies.
Scientists explain that long-term flooding of the fields cuts the soil off from atmospheric oxygen and causes anaerobic fermentation of organic matter in the soil. During the wet season, rice cannot hold the carbon in anaerobic conditions. The microbes in the soil convert the carbon into methane which is then released through the respiration of the rice plant or through diffusion of water.
It wasn’t until in 2001, when the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) submitted its report that methane was given much attention. “One of the most potent greenhouse gases on Earth,” the report said.
“Methane absorbs heat 21 times more than carbon dioxide and it has 9-15 year life time in the atmosphere over a 100-year period,” says Dr. Asis, Jr., a recipient of the 2011 Norman E. Borlaug International Agricultural Science and Technology Fellowship Award.
Rice fields are one of the major contributors of methane in the atmosphere. “An estimated 19 percent of the world’s methane production comes from rice paddies,” admits Dr. Alan Teramura, a botany professor at the University of Maryland. “As populations increase in rice-growing areas, more rice – and more methane – are produced.”
Farmers, particularly those growing rice, can help reduce methane emissions into the atmosphere by turning methane into clean fuel. That’s what Craig Jamieson, a British national who’s originally trained in horticulture, is trying to do.
He collaborated with the Laguna-based Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) to create a pilot facility that produces clean fuel from rice straw.
The Rice Straw Bioenergy Hub (RSBH), as it is called, facilitates access to clean energy for remote and underserved rural communities. The energy derived from waste rice straw, offers an innovative suite of technological services for rice farmers.
“The RSBH stands as a testament to what we can achieve when science, innovation and community come together,” Jamieson pointed out.
The clean fuel produced from RSBH is utilized for drying grains and subsequent milling. “We consulted with farmers, and they expressed a preference for using the energy for productive activities rather than for domestic purposes. Therefore, that is our focus,” Jamieson clarified.
