New Research Reveals How to Mitigate the Risks of Hybrid Rice
AUSTIN - February 13th, 2023
The Hani rice terraces which have enamored onlookers from all over the globe for decades appear to be crumbling in certain places. This is exactly what international development advisor Joy D’Angelo and her international team of researchers set out to investigate. “When I set out, I was really just looking for sustainable solutions to flood water management in Africa, and had chosen the famous Hani terraces as a place of inspiration.” She said. “I did not expect to uncover a new issue in the process, much less to be able to offer a solution there too, but we were happy to help.”
These terraces are not only a source of sustenance farming for locals, but have become a national emblem for China and are now also considered a world heritage site. Carved over 700 years ago, the UNESCO Hani Rice Terraces of Yunnan province have subsisted in near-perfect harmony.
Using an innovative model of interdisciplinary work where a human sciences research technique reveals and informs a life-science study, D’Angelo and her team were able to overcome a number of issues including unwrttien language and a paucity of technical data to examine an issue and propose a solution. The idea builds upon the ground-breaking work in the health care industry published in 2000 by Jan Savage, which argued for the use of ethnographic study in medicine because it “can generate questions for research that can be followed up by other methodologies.”
It appears that a super water-efficient hybrid rice introduced around thirty years ago may be part of the problem for the terraces. Paired with recently sealed water canals where there had been natural irrigation before, not enough water is percolating back into the ground to recharge the mountain aquifer, and therefore the springs which feed the system for both land and people. Importantly, the dry earth underneath a top-heavy paddy on a steep slope is bound to crumble. And with it, people’s livelihoods.
This of course causes conflict locally, and a loss of income for both families affected by the landslide. However, the new rice is too valuable in terms of time, energy, land and water savings —not to mention the increase in calories made available for livestock and people— to simply revert to the old.
The multi-national team have proposed an innovative solution though: intercropping of the old and new types and increasing local agroforestry at strategic locations. Together, these solutions could reinforce the water cycle while improving biodiversity and local resilience to climate change. Crucially, this combined reinforcement of the soil should also keep the paddies from crumbling one onto another. “Because China is not the only place using the hybrid for terracing, it is possible the same issue is occurring elsewhere, such as in the Philippines or Vietnam, where the same solution may be helpful.” said D’Angelo. More research is of course, needed.
The Open Access article is available online now through www.ScienceDirect.com, and was published in March 2023 as Mitigating risks of hybrid rice use in terraced agriculture in Elsevier’s new Geography and Sustainability journal.
Article link:
Study referenced:
Savage, J. Ethnography in health care BMJ 2000;321:1400.
https://www.bmj.com/content/321/7273/1400.long
More on the history of hybrid rice:
Author info:
Lead author: Joy D’Angelo, international development advisor:
Joy D’Angelo is an American independent international development advisor from Fort Worth, Texas. She was a guest researcher at the Yunnan Nationalities University in Kunming, China in 2014. Joy is also the author of a number of white papers on organizational resilience and food security.
Co-authors:
Santosh S. Palmate, postdoctoral researcher at Texas A&M AgriLife Research, Texas A&M university:
Santosh S. Palmate is also a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology (Roorke), and a previous recipient of both the World Bank Robert S. McNamara and United Nations University UN-CECAR fellowships. https://elpaso.tamu.edu/people/palmate-santosh-subhash/
Luc Descroix, senior investigator, hydrology at the Institut de la recherche pour le développement (IRD) Local heritage, environment and globalisation (PALOC) division of the Museum of natural history in Paris, France:
Luc is the author of a number of publications focusing on water issues in West Africa, and the co-author of “Eaux et territoires tensions, coopérations et géopolitique de l’eau” a comprehensive work on the geopolitics of water published by the University of Quebec. http://www.paloc.fr/fr/recherche?search_api_views_fulltext=luc+descroix
Company info:
Joy Savage D’Angelo – International Development Consulting is an American research and management boutique consulting firm.
Publisher info:
Elsevier is one of the largest academic publishers in the world.
Journal info:
Geography and Sustainability is a new journal from Elsevier launched in 2020 which aims to serve as the focal point for developing, coordinating and implementing interdisciplinary research and education to promote sustainable development through an integrated geography perspective. The journal encourages wider analysis and innovative thinking about global and regional sustainability by bridging and synthesising natural and human sciences. As per website https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/geography-and-sustainability (accessed 30 January 2023)
Media contact:
Joy D’Angelo
Lead author
+1 (817) 717-5451