{"id":11373,"date":"2020-10-22T08:28:41","date_gmt":"2020-10-22T05:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=11373"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:31:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:31:17","slug":"new-strains-of-rice-could-address-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2020\/10\/22\/new-strains-of-rice-could-address-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"New Strains of Rice Could Address Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rice is a staple for more than&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cgiar.org\/research\/center\/irri\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">3.5 billion people<\/a>, including most of the world\u2019s poor. But it can be a problematic crop to farm. It requires massive amounts of water and the paddies in which it grows emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To tackle such issues, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has been working with the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sagc.org.cn\/scienceen\/index.jhtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Shanghai Agrobiological Gene Center<\/a>&nbsp;to develop strains of rice that are drought resistant and don\u2019t need to be planted in paddies. The research, say, experts, could help bolster food security at a time when COVID-19 is threatening to propel more people into hunger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The study, which runs from 2017 to 2021, is funded by the Government of China and falls under the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.unep.org\/news-and-stories\/story\/un-environment-china-collaborate-major-south-south-initiative\">China-Africa South-South Cooperation arrangement<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cChina has lots of experience growing rice and this collaboration with China is a first,\u201d says UNEP ecosystems expert Levis Kavagi, who has been closely involved with the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Researchers have developed and tested over 50 varieties of rice in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda. They evaluated how the grains grow at different elevations and, importantly, how they taste. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unep.org\/news-and-stories\/story\/new-strains-rice-could-address-climate-change\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rice is a staple for more than&nbsp;3.5 billion people, including most of the world\u2019s poor. But it can be a problematic crop to farm. It requires massive amounts of water&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}