Should we eat less rice?

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I’m Neil.

And I’m Beth. Neil, what type of foods do you often eat?

Well, basic things that fill me up – that's sort of bread, potatoes.

Well, food like this, which is regularly eaten by many people, is known as a staple. In Britain, bread is a popular staple, but for large parts of the world there’s another food which is number one: rice.

That’s right. Over half the world’s population eats rice as the staple food, especially in Asia. But rice is a very ‘thirsty’ crop which needs lots of water to grow, and this is becoming a problem because of droughts and flooding caused by climate change.

In this programme, we’ll be hearing about a pioneering new technique helping farmers to grow rice in the face of a changing climate. As usual, we’ll be learning some useful new words and phrases, and remember you can find all the vocabulary

But first I have a question for you, Beth. Just now I mentioned that rice is a very ‘thirsty’ crop – so how much water is needed to grow one kilogram of rice? Is it: a) 1,000 to 3,000 litres? b) 3,000 to 5,000 litres? or, c) 5,000 to 7,000 litres?

I'm going to say c) 5,000 to 7,000 litres.

Well, we’ll find out the correct answer at the end of the programme. Dr Yvonne Pinto is Director General of the International Rice Research Institute, or IRRI for short, based in the Philippines. Here she explains more about the global popularity of rice to BBC World Service programme, The Food Chain:

Between 50 and 56 percent of the world's population rely on rice as the principal staple. Now, that's roughly about four billion people, and it is one of those commodities that is grown really extensively, particularly in South Asia and Southeast Asia. But increasingly the appetite for it is growing in continents like Africa, and of course there are also Latin American and European rice varieties.

Rice is a commodity, a produce that can be bought and sold. Like other crops, rice has varieties – different types, for example brown rice, long-grained rice or basmati. Much of the research into rice today is focused on making new varieties that can adapt to the changing environment and grow in conditions of either too much or too little water.

Over half the world’s population eats rice and there’s a growing demand in Africa and Europe too, so clearly there’s an appetite, a strong desire, for rice worldwide.

So, is it possible to grow rice in a more eco-friendly way? Jean-Philippe Laborde, director of rice company, Tilda, thinks the answer lies in a new growing technique called Alternate Wet Drying, or AWD for short.

To grow rice, farmers go through cycles of flooding their fields, or paddies, which then dry out and need to be flooded again. With AWD, measuring pipes are placed 15cm underground so that farmers can check water levels at any part of the field. Normally, rice needs 25 cycles of flooding and drying out to grow, but using AWD this is reduced to 20 cycles, saving farmers water and reducing methane emissions. Here’s Jean-Philippe Laborde, telling Ruth Alexander, presenter of BBC World Service’s, The Food Chain, how he began his AWD experiment with farmers in India:

We've got, last year, 1,268 farmers on board applying this AWD technique to reduce the overall methane emission.

And how did you persuade those farmers to give it a go?

That was quite challenging because obviously the main challenge is, for farmers, the apprehension to lose revenues. They need to see tangible results at the end of the crop… that they're getting obviously something better.

Many Indian farmers got on board with Jean-Phillipe’s experiment. If you get on board with something, you agree to a plan of action and get involved. In other words, you give it a go – you try doing something to see if it works.

As it turned out, the new technique produced tangible results, results which are real and measurable. Using AWD, the amounts of water and electricity needed to grow rice decreased, methane gas emissions reduced, and on top of that, the amount of rice yielded increased… Right, Neil, isn’t it time you revealed the answer to your question?

I asked how many litres of water are needed to grow just 1 kilogram of rice, and the answer was 3,000 to 5,000 litres so thirsty, but not as thirsty as you thought. OK, let’s recap the vocabulary we’ve learned in this programme, starting with commodity, a product, like rice, that can be bought and sold.

Varieties of something are different types of it.

If there’s an appetite for something, there’s a strong desire or demand for it.

If you get on board with an idea or a plan, you agree to do something and get involved with doing it.

To give it a go means to try doing something.

And finally, the adjective tangible means real and measurable. Once again our six minutes are up. If you’ve enjoyed this programme, why not try practising the new vocabulary you’ve learned with our worksheet – it’s available to download now while you’re there! Goodbye for now!

Bye!