Rice Crop Management and Breeding Strategies for Improving Food Security in a Changing Climate.

Rice productivity is a key to food security throughout Asia. Rice production contributes to climate change primarily through emission of methane from flooded rice paddies and emission of carbon dioxide during multiple agricultural production processes, including tillage operations and fertilizer and equipment manufacturing. Current strategies to mitigate these negative climate effects include developing water and crop residue management techniques that minimize greenhouse gas emissions, providing decision tools to enable farmers to use fertilizer more efficiently, and improving tillage practices. Anticipated net global climate changes include increased temperature, which negatively affects the rice flowering process in tropical zones, sea level rise, which will create salinity problems in key river delta rice production areas, and weather extremes, which will stress plants either through drought or excessive flooding. Rice genotypes are currently being screened for the ability to tolerate these stresses, in order to maintain productivity by adapting to the changing climate.