I started on this yesterday, had to put it aside for work, and I’m hugely busy today. Then I thought, you know, I have a whole army of people that can crowdsource an article, so why not ask them to help?
OK the premise starts with this press release:
Higher temperatures to slow Asian rice production
Production of rice will be thwarted as temperatures increase in rice-growing areas with continued climate change
Production of rice—the world’s most important crop for ensuring food security and addressing poverty—will be thwarted as temperatures increase in rice-growing areas with continued climate change, according to a new study by an international team of scientists.
The research team found evidence that the net impact of projected temperature increases will be to slow the growth of rice production in Asia. Rising temperatures during the past 25 years have already cut the yield growth rate by 10-20 percent in several locations.
Published in the online early edition the week of Aug. 9, 2010 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences —a peer-reviewed, scientific journal from the United States—the report analyzed six years of data from 227 irrigated rice farms in six major rice-growing countries in Asia, which produces more than 90 percent of the world’s rice.
“We found that as the daily minimum temperature increases, or as nights get hotter, rice yields drop,” said Jarrod Welch, lead author of the report and graduate student of economics at the University of California, San Diego.
…
more here:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-08/uoc–htt080610.php
Problem is, I don’t quite believe this study, especially since the INTERNATIONAL RICE RESEARCH INSTITUTE shows this graph:
Average rice yield in the Philippines and a selection of
other rice-growing countries (tons per hectare) (Source: FAOstats)
Source: http://beta.irri.org/test/j15/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=393&Itemid=100104
I don’t know a thing about rice growing, but I figure some readers do. How can we have a temperature rise and CO2 rise in the past century and have 50 year increasing rice yields in the same Asian countries as the study?
Some other data:
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2009/09/10/more-on-thailands-low-agricultural-productivity/
http://beta.irri.org/test/j15/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=710&Itemid=100111
I can compile what readers find and post in comments and present it as a new article. Thanks for your consideration – Anthony
PhilJourdan says:
August 10, 2010 at 12:39 pm
However you can combine both: Tomatoes filled with rice.
“The largest rice producing state (of the 50 United States) is-Minnesota.”
I don’t know Phil, I thought it was Arkansas. Those poor guys in Arkansas don’t get any credit for doing anything good, or productive, for that matter. Hmm….let me check my memory on Google. I shall return.
Haven’t had time to read all the comments, so this might have been mentioned before, but–
In heavily-terraced mountainous areas rice grows only up to a certain elevation. In central Nepal it’s about 3,000 feet, after which farmers switch to maize, buckwheat, and millet. So if–and that’s a big IF!–the growing-season temperature in such regions was increasing, then the maximum rice elevation would increase, and you’d get more production, not less.
/Mr Lynn
E.M.Smith says:
August 10, 2010 at 1:34 pm
And the difference is that chemical based farming is simpler and uses less labor but at the cost of lower yields than can be had with “intensification”. Organic produces more production per unit of land, but at the cost of a lot more complexity and a lot more labor. Done at large scale, organic ends up costing about the same as chemical, but most is done at small scale and sold in niche markets so the costs and prices are higher.
That is why Organic Farming goes hand in hand with the Malthusian paradigm…
We should not forget that “Life is Nature’s trick to overcome entropy” . So, , as things go on, just don’t worry up there, just learn spanish….:-)
maybe the decrease in Rice growth is occuring because we have less new technologies that can be applied to increase the rate, we got it very high so now we can only slightly increase, instead of massively increase yield, but we’re still increasing yield
One other thing: Rice comes in both ‘upland’ and ‘lowland’ types. There are different temperature needs of each, though all like heat. More interesting, though, is that many upland types are farmed without flooding. The field flooding is not needed for rice, it’s just that rice tolerates flooding while other plants do not. So you can flood the field as a kind of weed control that’s low labor.
This means a lot of rice could be grown on land now not used. Land that is too porous to flood. Including ‘upland’ and mountain areas where it’s cooler.
Heat does not reduce where you can grow things. It usually increases them. It may, in some small places (like Phoenix Arizona) when you get to over 120 F regularly change WHEN you grow them and / or move some things ‘up slope’ a little.
Far more important is water. You simply MUST have water. And cold times are dry times. Warm times are wet. Warming makes more rain (see hurricanes for example, driven by warm oceans) while cold makes less (see Antarctic precipitation at very low levels as an extreme example). So I’d stress the way warmers get it backwards about heat causing deserts. You can have frozen deserts… DRY allows deserts, and dry can become hotter or colder as the water moderation is lost. It’s not about the temperature, it’s about the heat content and flows, and that means heat of vaporization of water and heat of fusion of water.
from: http://www.plantcultures.org/plants/rice_grow_it.html
Also, this article:
http://beaumont.tamu.edu/eLibrary/Newsletter/2009_May_Newsletter.pdf
finds that you can cure any heat problem by giving the rice an aspirin…
No, honest. At 32 C nighttime temps, the plant fertility starts to drop off a bit (it does like it below 85 F or so at night when resting…) but if salicylic acid is applied, no problem. So “take two aspirins and call me in the morning” is a valid “cure” for AGW in rice! (they used a 5 C range for the tests, so it will take a while for AGW to get to the aspirin point…)
Hungry?. Rice and beans anyone?
What a wonderful world, it is, we live in.
Experts in Excelling, whose closest to rice production is boil in the bag and trickiest scientific challenges involve raising a cheer for Tamino when SMc is labelled as a contrarian because (a) he’s talking nonsense and (b) even if he wasn’t he’s an idiot ‘cos he is. Doh!
Strangely, ’nuff, I detect that Steve is that most dangerous of critics in that (a) he’s one clever bloke(b) correct!
Keep dogging guys, or, maybe less pleasurable , keep digging.
But what do I know?
Field studies are notoriously difficult because of the usual impossibility of holding all else constant while one factor varies. These authors look at only six years worth of rice production during which lots of factors would have varied. Those years will have had completely different weather patterns – different wind strengths – different rainfall – perhaps hail or strong storms – different number of sunny days – different length of season – etc. And from this extremely complicated situation across ONLY SIX YEARS OF DATA they claim to be able to isolate a tiny second order effect due to only one factor – increased temperature at nighttime – a factor for which they state no mechanism. Impossible! Ridiculous! Indefensible! This is just bad science.
To pick it apart further, nighttime temperatures correlate closely with other factors which could also be expected to effect production. For example temperatures are warmer on cloudy nights. So the number of warmer nights tends to correlate with cloudiness. On cloudy days there is less sunlight hitting the leaves. Why assume that the warm temperatures at night are causing a drop in production when there is no mechanism to explain why they should and when there is a very obvious mechanism to explain why less sunshine might cause this effect.
Warmer nights are also often seen during stormy weather. Rice can suffer wind damage in strong winds; hail and other extreme weather events can also damage it. Once again there is an obvious mechanism here in a closely correlated factor. How on earth could they POSSIBLY isolate off these effects in only six years worth of data to the extent that they can then claim to have accurately measured a DECREASE IN THE RATE OF INCREASE of rice production. Good grief!
Forgive my skeptical guffaw. This is just rubbish.
You can bet Monsanto is engineering a heat-resistant rice, already.
But which one was there first?
Monsanto’s heat-resistant rice – or the study about the negative impact of heat on rice crops?
Follow the money!
Asia seems to be doing a just fine with all this global warming. Data up to 2008.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/Rice-Yield.jpg
DirkH says:
August 10, 2010 at 10:32 am
Ok, from Richard Black, BBC, we get:
“Yields have fallen by 10-20% over the last 25 years in some locations.”
He also said this.
The trouble is he doesn’t name the study so you don’t know if he is yet again misrepresenting their findings.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/Rice-Yield-phil.jpg
I have been in the Philippines several times.
I have also been right in the middle of large rice fields and talked to people who live there.
I can tell you from personal experience,that it is hot as hell there already.With 90 + degrees F and 90% + humidity.Yet the rice grows just fine there.
Meanwhile there is not a whole lot of temperature increase left to go with in this part of the world because of the super high humidity and frequent thunderstorms.
The highs would be in the low 90’s F and the lows in the upper 70’s and low 80’s,almost EVERY DAY!
Increased CO2 reduces transpiration making the plant more resistant to heat extremes and more effective at using available water and nutrients. Big increase in productivity unless the heat is NOT accompanied by CO2 increase. (how would you stop the oceans from outgassing?)
In advancing an hypothesis that is counter-intuitive it pays to have a plausible mechanism. As far as I can see they present no explanation as to why increasing temperature should decrease crop yield or even slow the rate of increase in crop yield. Yet another reason for rejecting this poor excuse for science
Minnesota has competition:
CALIFORNIA RICE FACTS
http://www.calrice.org
• The California rice industry annually
contributes more than $1.3 billion dollars to
the state’s economy.
• California is the nation’s second largest rice
producing state, with annual production
exceeding four billion pounds.
• The Sacramento Valley is the heart of
California’s rice industry, much like the
Napa Valley is to premium wine and wine
grapes. More than ninety-five percent of the
state’s rice crop is grown within 100 miles of
the State Capitol.
• California ricelands are used by 230
wildlife species, with an estimated $1.5
billion in habitat value. No crop does
more for our environment than
California rice.
———-
The other pdf at calrice.org documents struggles with the EPA, and Barbara Boxer is proud to have worked with all parties to bring solutions. California Rice Growers depend on exports to sustain profitability. Lots of enviro-friendly speak in those pages.
Lots of Asian countries depend on our surplus of rice, and have been doing so since I worked at Farmers Rice Co-op and RGA in the early 70’s.
CO2science has done much of the work necessary to base the discussion of rice yield vs. CO2 or temperature on credible facts.
To find related articles at the site, use this search:
http://www.bing.com/search?q=rice+yield+CO2+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.co2science.org&go=&form=QBRE&filt=all&qs=n&sk=
A comparable search at the CO2science site for rice yield vs. temperature is this one:
http://www.bing.com/search?q=rice+yield+temperature+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.co2science.org&go=&form=QBRE&filt=all&qs=n&sk=
Many of the study reports show up on the lists for both searches. Clearly, the related research studied rice yields in relation to temperatures as well as CO2 levels. Generally it appears that elevated CO2 levels will substantially increase rise yields, whereas rising temperatures may cause some yield reduction. Increased CO2 levels more than compensate for yield losses due to elevated temperatures.
I wonder why the “new study by an international team of scientists” quoted at the beginning of this discussion thread did not mention increased rice yields due to increased atmospheric CO2 levels. Perhaps that is because it is an inconvenient truth.
You can expand the search for other cereals and will find similar results.
Also from the CO2scince website:
“China: Getting Greener (In the Good Sense): (Uploaded 8 October 2008)
Over a quarter-century ago, Dr. Sherwood Idso stated in a small self-published book that if the airs CO2 content continued to rise, it would enhance plant growth and water use efficiency to the point that semi-arid lands not then suitable for cultivation could be brought into profitable production and that the deserts themselves could blossom as the rose. How is this prediction standing today?”
Watch the video clip associated with that, for a four-minute status report on that prediction.
http://www.co2science.org/education/truthalerts/v11/chinagreening.php
Bummer: “rise yields” should be “rice yields”.
I love the use of the word “thwarted” here. This term is usually employed in respect of negating nefarious plots, not hindering goody-goody plans that perhaps feed more people (although I concede it can so apply).
I was thwarted in my attempts to feed some additional people with rice due to the increase in global average temperatures of 0.7 degrees C over the last 150 years. Curses!
All my relatives in China are rice growers. They tell me that the yield/unit area of rice more than tripled in past 20 or so years. I don’t think this growing rate can last for ever (no matter what climate will be ) the growing rate going down is inevitable. You can attribute the decrease growing rate to any thing you choose. but it has no real meaning.
The “scientists” choose AGW. But
One of my relative’s wife is complaining her husband:
” all is your false. You shouldn’t ask for sex in the morning”
My relative’s wife’s complain has more reasons to be correct than the AGW.
I got to beat the drum here on this study and the fraudulent omission of drought and cherry picking of dates.
The general trends from 1985-2000 for both rice production and yield, for all countries in this study were improving every year despite the global or local increases in minimal temperatures. The improved yield and production may be for many reasons as people have mentioned but that is not the issue here. The issue is that given the steady improvements, where then did they find the data creating a negative trend?
The Phillipines and Indonesia are hardest hit by El Nino caused droughts while China usually benefits from improved precipitation. The 1998 El Nino drought caused major declines in Indonesia and the Phillipines. Naturally flooded fields are affected more than irrigated fields and it is not clear from looking at only the abstract and supplemental data, if or how they controlled for this effect. Of the 1372 observations 38 % cam from the Phillipines and Indonesia combined. Limited data from China contributed 6.6% of the study’s observations but covered only 1998-99. The Hanoi area contributed 10.5 % of the observations but only covered 1997-1999.
The only way this study can get any overall negative trend is by having 1998 towards the endpoint of the trend, which they conveniently do, using only data from 1994-1999. It is now 2010 why do they only use data to 1999?? Why include China for trend analysis when it only covers 1998-1999? Hmmmm?
Look at countries studied: Phillipines, Vietnam, Indonesia, China, and Thailand on the website http://www.irri.org/science/cnyinfo/indonesia.asp to see the annual trends in yield and total production.
Phillipines: Steady increase 1985-2000 in production. Huge drop only in 1998. Yield varies as acreage harvested changes
Indonesia: Steady increase 1985-2000 in both yield and production.. Exception 1998 yield and production drop but improve in 1999
China: Yield and productin rises from 5.2 in 1985 to 6.3 in 1999. During that time there was only one period of decline from 1998 to 1999, which, miraculously, are the only dates available for China in this study. Not sure if increased production is due to climate or market demand.
Thailand_: Yield varied but generally increases from 1985-2000 from 2.1-2.3 peaks 1995 at 2.4 dropping to 2.3 in 1998 and reamains at 2.3 for dates given .
Both India and Vietnam have steady increases from 1985-2000 in both yield and production. That can only correlate positively with increased minimum temperatures.
Conclusion: India and Vietnam data as well as overall trends contradict the minimum temperature causes decline theory. The only negative trend is seen in the combined Phillipines, Indonesia and China data that where the decline are all accounted for by the El Nino drought. The clever use of statistics has produced fraudulent claims! Such book keeping would be a crime elsewhere!
Interesting. Yes, indeed warm nights would increase respiration demands, but because the sun is not shinning there is no countering photosynthetic production, so the respiration has to be done using sugars the plant has stored and would otherwise use to make grain.
This may be a repeat post but when I try to post it doesn’t show.
I got to beat the drum here on this study and the fraudulent omission of drought and cherry picking of dates.
The general trends from 1985-2000 for both rice production and yield, for all countries in this study were improving every year despite the global or local increases in minimal temperatures. The improved yield and production may be for many reasons as people have mentioned but that is not the issue here. The issue is that given the steady improvements, where then did they find the data creating a negative trend?
The Phillipines and Indonesia are hardest hit by El Nino caused droughts while China usually benefits from improved precipitation. The 1998 El Nino drought caused major declines in Indonesia and the Phillipines. Naturally flooded fields are affected more than irrigated fields and it is not clear from looking at only the abstract and supplemental data, if or how they controlled for this effect. Of the 1372 observations 38 % cam from the Phillipines and Indonesia combined. Limited data from China contributed 6.6% of the study’s observations but covered only 1998-99. The Hanoi area contributed 10.5 % of the observations but only covered 1997-1999.
The only way this study can get any overall negative trend is by having 1998 towards the endpoint of the trend, which they conveniently do, using only data from 1994-1999. It is now 2010 why do they only use data to 1999?? Why include China for trend analysis when it only covers 1998-1999? Hmmmm?
Look at countries studied: Phillipines, Vietnam, Indonesia, China, and Thailand on the website http://www.irri.org/science/cnyinfo/indonesia.asp to see the annual trends in yield and total production.
Phillipines: Steady increase 1985-2000 in production. Huge drop only in 1998. Yield varies as acreage harvested changes
Indonesia: Steady increase 1985-2000 in both yield and production.. Exception 1998 yield and production drop but improve in 1999
China: Yield and productin rises from 5.2 in 1985 to 6.3 in 1999. During that time there was only one period of decline from 1998 to 1999, which, miraculously, are the only dates available for China in this study. Not sure if increased production is due to climate or market demand.
Thailand_: Yield varied but generally increases from 1985-2000 from 2.1-2.3 peaks 1995 at 2.4 dropping to 2.3 in 1998 and reamains at 2.3 for dates given .
Both India and Vietnam have steady increases from 1985-2000 in both yield and production. That can only correlate positively with increased minimum temperatures.
Conclusion: India and Vietnam data as well as overall trends contradict the minimum temperature causes decline theory. The only negative trend is seen in the combined Phillipines, Indonesia and China data that where the decline are all accounted for by the El Nino drought. The clever use of statistics has produced fraudulent claims! Such book keeping would be a crime elsewhere!
Rice fields are only flooded to prevent weeds, the ancient agricultural practices must be abolished and new cultivation methods are needed. The old methods are of course also a matter of proteins in the form of rice, crayfish and catfish, but it requires a major agricultural reform in SEA
.Henry chance says.I love the comment about those green tractors.
The first hint of a biased article was that it was produced by an economist from California.
One might compare rice yields to corn in the USA. Corn yields still have room to improve. A teenager produced 300 buschel per acre corn as a 4-H project in the 50’s. The national average yield per acre for corn this year is projected to be around 161 buschels per acre. Why doesn’t every acre of corn in the USA yield 300 Buschels per acre. Several factors such as suitabiliy of the soil for crop production, the amount of labor required to achive that type of yield and cost are but three of several reasons. The biggest reason is you have to make a profit. It can be more profitable to produce corn that yields 100 bu. per acre.
Silly me I keep forgetting that CO2 is the evil that must be stopped.
Did the authors take into account the Norman Borlaug effect?