Annual paddy rice is now available as a long-lived perennial after more than 9,000 years in cultivation. The advancement means farmers can plant just once and reap up to eight harvests without sacrificing yield. This is an important step change relative to “ratooning,” or cutting back annual rice to
chronicles agronomic, economic, and environmental outcomes of perennial rice cultivation across China’s Yunnan Province. The retooled crop is already changing the lives of more than 55,752 smallholder farmers in southern China and Uganda.
“Perennial rice not only benefits farmers by improving labor efficiency and soil quality, but it also helps replenish ecological systems required to maintain productivity over the long term.” —The researchers developed perennial rice through hybridization, crossing an Asian domesticated annual rice with a wild perennial rice from Africa.
“The reduction in labor, often done by women and children, can be accomplished without substitution by fossil fuel–based equipment, an important consideration as society aims to improve livelihoods while reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with agricultural production,” Sacks says. “Now we can consciously choose to make a better crop, and a better, more sustainable agriculture. We can fix the errors of history.” —Avoiding twice-yearly tillage, perennial rice cultivation also provides significant environmental benefits. The research team documented higher soil organic carbon and nitrogen stored in soils under perennial rice. Additional soil quality parameters improved, as well.
Although they’ve already conducted on-farm testing and released three perennial rice varieties as commercial products in China and one in Uganda, the researchers aren’t done refining the crop. They plan to use the same modern genetic tools to quickly introduce desirable traits such as aroma, disease resistance, and drought tolerance into the new crop, potentially expanding its reach across the globe.
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