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Partners & Projects

China: Climate-Friendly Rice Production

Project Date:

November 2021 – May 2025

Partners:

Zhenro Foundation

Background

Global rice production must be included in dialogues on climate and sustainable development. Although the global agriculture sector—particularly livestock—is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, rice production also contributes significantly.

In fact, rice cultivation drives as much as 10% of anthropological methane emissions, according to World Bank statistics. Methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gases that warm up the Earth’s atmosphere, with a climate heating potential that is 28-fold compared to carbon dioxide on a 100-year timescale. Besides being a major contributor of emissions, rice cultivation also uses up significant amounts of the planet’s resources, consuming approximately 40% of global freshwater.

While agriculture fuels climate change, it is in itself at risk due to the impacts of climate-induced extreme weather events. Rice provides one-fifth of the world’s total food calories, making it one of the most valuable staple foods sustaining diets across the world. Therefore, climate events such as droughts and water shortages that impact rice production have the potential to wreak enormous havoc to global nutrition and livelihoods.

This project, led by Zhenro Foundation, is based in China, the world’s largest rice producer. Besides being a production powerhouse, rice is the primary staple food for over 65% of the country’s population. China faces a number of additional unique challenges too, given its enormous population and the predominance of small-scale producers in the region.

To address these issues, this project aims to solve a number of distinct issues in relation to sustainable rice production in the country, from how to minimise chemical pollution in agriculture and slash emissions from rice cultivation, to how to create solutions that are context-specific and adaptable to the diverse conditions experienced across the nation of China. It also seeks to target the pivotal issues of farmland labour shortages as a result of urbanisation and the crucial need to safeguard the country’s food security.

Project Features

Sustainable solutions for rice farming in China promoted in this project is based upon the research and development by a team of scientists from the Soil and Fertiliser Institute of the Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences (SAAS). These technologies will be implemented across different Chinese regions, including the provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, Hunan, Heilongjiang and Guangdong.
Aligned with EarthCare Foundation’s values of collaboration and holistic sustainability, Zhenro Foundation’s programmes in these Chinese regions aim to bring together numerous players, from social organisations, to farming cooperatives, local farmers and other agricultural stakeholders. Activities include demonstrations of planting, technical training programmes and ongoing refinement of techniques and methods that have been adapted to the local agro-economic context.
Placing an emphasis on the local context and each region’s unique characteristics, solutions were tailored to the on-the-ground needs and capacities of each site. In Sichuan, village farming cooperatives hosted training workshops that focused on methods like conservation tillage. These sustainable practices will improve yields and livelihoods, while also boosting soil quality.
Meanwhile, at the site in Yunnan, which stretches from Kunming to Xishuangbanna in the southwestern region of the province, the focus was placed on reducing nitrogen fertiliser use. This was designed to help reduce the threats posed to nearby freshwater resources in Erhai Lake and Fuxian Lake as a result of rice cultivation.
In the Dongting Lake region of Hunan, small-scale rice planting equipment and machinery has been introduced to alleviate issues as a result of labour shortages. In a similar vein, in Wuchang, Heilongjiang, climate-friendly rice technology was integrated with traditional rice-duck co-cropping methods. This polycultural practice of raising ducks and rice on the same land has the benefit of reducing the need to use pesticides or herbicides, as ducks help rice seedlings grow by eating the weeds and insects. The combination of both traditional and modern practices has resulted in a reduction in methane emissions, while improving quality and yields for farmers in these areas.
Over the course of the project, Zhenro Foundation will be providing comprehensive training to social organisations, farmers’ cooperatives and farmers to create a foundation of knowledge about sustainable farming concepts and techniques. These sessions also serve as forums for discussing comprehensive solutions tailored to local conditions.
Furthermore, the regular documentation of pilot experiences has enabled the project to produce a number of educational materials and summary guidelines. Resources such as the ‘Climate-Friendly Rice Farming Practices at Scale’ and ‘Climate-Friendly Rice Farming Technical Guidelines’ were devised to help lay the groundwork for expansion and replication in future sites.

Project Outcomes

As a result of the programme’s focus on science-backed innovation, years of research data was effectively transformed into solutions that took account of local needs. Solutions addressed the acute challenges faced by small and medium-sized farmers, bolstering their ability to adapt and be resilient to the impacts of climate change.
One of the unique outcomes of the project was the demonstrated effectiveness of blending traditional methods with innovative climate-smart technologies. By combining these two aspects, farmers were able to explore how a blend of practical solutions could develop their local agricultural economy in a green and sustainable way.
Furthermore, this project spotlighted the need for green solutions to be prioritised alongside the improvement of livelihoods. Having observed that different producers—smallholders, family farms, large-scale producers—all required varied and tailored solutions, the programmes’ pilots were all created to test out distinct interventions. These varied solutions and experiences could serve as case studies to apply and scale up in future scenarios.