Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Guardian author Nicola Davis is alarmed that adding CO2 to rice reduces the vitamins, minerals and protein – in some varieties of rice.
Climate change ‘will make rice less nutritious’
Nicola Davis
Thu 24 May 2018 04.00 AEST
When scientists exposed the crop to higher levels of carbon dioxide vitamin levels fell significantly
Rice will become less nutritious as carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere rise, potentially jeopardising the health of the billions of people who rely on the crop as their main source of food, new research suggests.
Scientists have found that exposing rice to the levels of carbon dioxide that are expected in the atmosphere before the end of the century results in the grain containing lower levels of protein, iron and zinc, as well as reduced levels of a number of B vitamins.
“About two billion people rely on rice as a primary food source and among those that are the poorest, often the consumption of rice in terms of their daily calories is over 50%,” said Dr Lewis Ziska, a co-author of the research from the United States department of agriculture. “Anything that impacts rice in terms of its nutritional quality is going to have an impact.”
…
But with some of the varieties of rice apparently showing little change in levels of certain nutrients, the researchers say it might be possible to find or develop types of rice that will remain nutritious as the climate changes.
A drop in the nutritiousness of rice as a result of climate change could have profound health effects, particularly for those who rely most heavily on the crop, with the authors warning that it could affect early childhood development and worsen the impact of diseases including malaria.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/23/climate-change-will-make-rice-less-nutritious
The abstract of the study;
Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels this century will alter the protein, micronutrients, and vitamin content of rice grains with potential health consequences for the poorest rice-dependent countries
Chunwu Zhu, Kazuhiko Kobayashi, Irakli Loladze, Jianguo Zhu, Qian Jiang, Xi Xu, Gang Liu, Saman Seneweera, Kristie L. Ebi, Adam Drewnowski, Naomi K. Fukagawa and Lewis H. Ziska
Declines of protein and minerals essential for humans, including iron and zinc, have been reported for crops in response to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, [CO2]. For the current century, estimates of the potential human health impact of these declines range from 138 million to 1.4 billion, depending on the nutrient. However, changes in plant-based vitamin content in response to [CO2] have not been elucidated. Inclusion of vitamin information would substantially improve estimates of health risks. Among crop species, rice is the primary food source for more than 2 billion people. We used multiyear, multilocation in situ FACE (free-air CO2 enrichment) experiments for 18 genetically diverse rice lines, including Japonica, Indica, and hybrids currently grown throughout Asia. We report for the first time the integrated nutritional impact of those changes (protein, micronutrients, and vitamins) for the 10 countries that consume the most rice as part of their daily caloric supply. Whereas our results confirm the declines in protein, iron, and zinc, we also find consistent declines in vitamins B1, B2, B5, and B9 and, conversely, an increase in vitamin E. A strong correlation between the impacts of elevated [CO2] on vitamin content based on the molecular fraction of nitrogen within the vitamin was observed. Finally, potential health risks associated with anticipated CO2-induced deficits of protein, minerals, and vitamins in rice were correlated to the lowest overall gross domestic product per capita for the highest rice-consuming countries, suggesting potential consequences for a global population of approximately 600 million.
Read more: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/5/eaaq1012
The “CO2 makes food less nutritious” narrative is my favourite climate absurdity.
To be fair to the researchers they appear to have conducted their research outdoors, keeping other factors as natural as possible.
But the fact some rice varieties don’t experience significantly reduced nutrient levels, even without selective breeding or genetic manipulation, completely undermines assertions that this issue presents any risk to human health. Delving into the research paper, some varieties even exhibited increased levels of key nutrients.
As the GM golden rice effort demonstrates, rice can and has been manipulated to enhance nutrient levels – in the case of golden rice, the rice was genetically modified to enhance vitamin beta-carotene / vitamin A levels. Shortage of vitamin A is a major cause of blindness in poor countries.
We have an entire century of genetic superscience to solve any issues with nutrient content. The creation of Golden Rice demonstrates we already have the technology to enhance individual nutrients. In 100 years we’ll probably have the technology to produce varieties of rice which sing sweet lullabies in the evening. Even if this slight reduction in nutrient content is an issue, it is an issue which will be well and truly solved long before it has any opportunity to cause harm to human health.
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Greenpeace and their fellow travelers at the Grauniad and other “environmentalists” have aided and abetted the deaths of millions of undernourished children in their insane opposition to Golden Rice. That action alone has resulted in lowering the potential nutritional value of rice more than any increase in the overall caloric value of CO2-fertilized rice “dilutes” the protein & mineral content of said rice.
These people (and I’m being generous calling them that) have no redeeming qualities at all. They want to force the whole planet to join their death cult.
Rice and most grains have only one saving grace and that is they can be stored without refrigeration. They have a high glycemic load and a low nutritional density which is totally opposite what you want from food.
Ehh?
Ed,
“high glycemic load” translates to a fast increase in blood glucose levels:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/glycemic-index-and-glycemic-load-for-100-foods
“low nutrient density” is self-explanatory.
Here’s reality: Total calories produced goes up. People can eat for nutrition and they will get more calories. The increased yield means more food. If the poorest rice nations aren’t limited by calories, they aren’t poor. More CO2 puts more food on the table for constant nutritional value. It ends hunger. Only rich nations with excess calories and obesity would be affected negatively but not to the point where nutrition is affected.
Well it is legitimate to assume that farmers would not go to extra expense of adding nitrogen to the soil when CO2 levels double; HOWEVER in the study they only used 17 varieties out of a total of 40000 different varieties of rice on the planet. AND in the case of zinc 4 varieties showed more AND in the case of iron 2 varieties showed more. For protein the highest drop was 19% with 1 variety -6% and another one -5% and another one -10% (error factor of +/-10%). For B5 3 varieties were < 5% decline while for B9 1 variety declined only 10% For B2 2 varieties declined < 10% and for B1 1 variety had only 12% decline. As the article said all these can be boosted with genetic engineering . So far this is the only negative I have ever encountered with increasing CO2 levels in the air and it is a very slight negative at that.
I guess the extra crop yields outweighs the negatives anyway because if you are too poor to get your nutrients in any other way than rice then you probably wouldnt be stuffing your stomach with the poorer nutrient rice in the year 2084 to the point that you couldnt eat extra of it to make up the difference. I assume that the extra crop yields would bring the price down in 2084 so that the individual family in Bangladesh would be able to buy more of it and eat more of it to make up the difference in nutrients. Perhaps an information campaign in the year 2050 as a head start to inform the worlds poor to eat more rice if they have it on their menu. Somehow I dont think this will be a problem that will surface at that time. If it is a problem by 2050 im sure that the UN can handle the information campaign By diismantling the IPCC there would be more than enough money to handle the information campaign.
So they take a balanced plant life cycle and increase one factor significantly, that would otherwise adapt over several generations of plant for the next 70 years at around 2ppm a year.
hmm, reminds me of dropping corals into acid, to represent 70 years of predicted slow changes in pH.
#science
#apparently
The logic is wrong.
People will find enough food to eat, or die.
If there is more weight of food from CO2, they will find more weight of food, hence compensatory low-concentration nutrients.
They will eat until their nutrient needs are supplied, or die. The chemical analysis of their mainstay food is immaterial. Geoff
Yes, I believe your logic is wrong! Taken from Livestock data: Feeding animals too much poor quality food ( roughage) only serves to fill their Bellies making for satisfaction – and then starvation because the Energy release is insufficient to maintain Heat and life. Equally a diet low in Minerals causes problems and then can go on to state likewise with Vitamin content.. I certainly don’t gobble loadsa food to get more Vits n Mins. WE knew all this in the 70’s. …….
Saighdear,
You have introduced a straw man by moving from discussion of a normal diet to a ‘poor quality food(roughage)’.
My argument is about such a small change in food composition that it would scarce be noted.
The shift from normal, to that with reduced levels of some vitamins and minerals on a per weight basis caused by CO2 enrichment, is so small that it is ludicrous to start talkin about roughage comparisons.
It is also misleading to gather together a clutch of vitamins and minerals that you claim are decreased by CO2 enrichment, then suggest that there will be a nutritional problem. First you have to establish that the original levels of one or more of these were marginal, so that any decrease would lead to a deficiency. It would be extremely unlikely that all in the clutch would be found deficient. The argument is meaningless unless and until a particular nutrient or vitamin is identified as marginal normally, so that its further reductions could cause a problem. The old bucket with holes analogy says that the one to watch is the lowest one; patch it, then wait until the water rises to find the next one to patch. You need not patch all of the holes in the bucket to get use out of it.
It would also help, critically, to give numbers to support the generality of the argument as presented at the start here, an argument of hand waving grandeur but little fact. Geoff
To be fair, Geoff, your analysis was not exactly heavy on facts. Although I must admit that the logic of “People will find enough food to eat, or die.” is hard to challenge.
So? Eat mair tatties ! ( for the linguistically challenged = Broaden your dietary habits and eat more potatoes )
RAH: Government Money Makes Many “Scientists” Turn Into Babbling Idiots.
I wonder if the people who are running the Guardian into the ground ever really think about the reasons why it is being abandoned by what was a technically numerate readership in droves, leaving only a sad collection of Maoists, enviro-imperialists and well meaning students buying into its poorly prepared alarmism.
Yes. My own research reveals that increase in atmospheric CO2 markedly reduces the intelligence of the Gardian’s output.
Guardian losses fell this year.
I don’t know whether that is from creative accounting or from political advertising payments from TeamHillary and remain.
“About two billion people rely on rice as a primary food source and among those that are the poorest..”
Well yes, but that won’t be the case in 70 years time!
This research takes CO2 levels a the end of the century and then uses today’s poverty figures – insanely stupid.
Extreme poverty has halved in the last few decades, as has poverty in places highly dependent on rice, such as India and China. There is no reason why it should not continue to fall. This is just beyond stupid.
The people who put out this “study” are the same ones who have been doing everything in their power to increase poverty.
This was totally predictable. The warmistas know they are losing the argument that CO2 causes the planet to boil. So they are now softening up the politicians by claiming that, ok CO2 doesn’t cook us, but, hey, look what other ‘harm’ it does. Anything, any lie, any absurdity will do to keep the green levers on our energy supply, to control us.
It’s not a good food anyway. It’s fine for the starving and needy, but Ideally we want plants grown without chemicals in soils with quality minerals.
Reanne,
Why on Earth do you promote “plants grown without chemicals in soils with quality minerals”?
You are taking the pi$$, are you not?
“Quality minerals” ARE “chemicals”. One and the same thing.
Each time you pull a carrot out of the ground and take it home to eat, you are taking away from your garden soil a number of minerals such as those providing Fe, Cu, Co, Mo, Se to name a few, the so-called nutritional trace elements. The soil has some ability to provide more of these from its reservoir, to grow the next crop. However, with much farming today, you are taking these away faster than the soil can regenerate the. If you do not truck in and add to the reserves from time to time, your yields will drop each harvest and in a few years it will not be worth the effort to plant each year.
Not just trace elements – phosphorus and potassium are two major nutrients than can exhaust enough to materially reduce year on year harvests. The most efficient way to replenish these is by mining phosphate rock and potash rock and this is what is done on a grand scale. You can make small replenishments by adding organic material like dung or compost, but in the overall equation these will also diminish over seasons unless you add the mined product.
But, there is no way you can make your carrot grow year after year if you do not follow the wealth of farming knowledge that has led us to the ‘chemical’ addition of potassium, phosphorus (and nitrogen, if other pathways are not adequate).
The current fuzzy trendy of ‘organic farming’ is a disaster waiting to happen if it ever grows important enough to global affect farm economics. It is a dreadful mishmash of science-avoiding, chemical-avoiding excuses dressed up as vital to virtue signallers. Like your air-head comment that started this reply. Geoff.
Just remember that the use of Night soil is a form of organic farming.
Organic farming: feeding dozens from land which could feed thousands.
Why are you so afraid of chemicals?
Not if you are hungry. Wisely used chemicals increase yields. And you need to use the soil you have, so some will need to add minerals.
Idealism, eh?
Was this another computer model study?
From the study, at http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/5/eaaq1012.full
Although these data indicate that [CO2] affects nutrient composition, the impact of these qualitative changes on health will vary as a function of rice consumed relative to the total caloric intake. Previous calculations of the impact of rising CO2 on human nutrition relied on Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) food balance sheets combined with Monte Carlo simulations run on the range of projected declines of zinc, protein, and iron.
As long as it still snaps crackles and pops I’m good.
The US grows and exports a heck of a lot of rice. I see the fields and processing elevators in S. Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas frequently. Significant export for the US. I suspect that next some moron will start complaining about the fact they burn the stubble off once the crop is harvested.
Glancing through the full paper and methods description, it appears (unless I’ve missed something) that all the analyses were performed on uncooked rice. What impact does cooking rice have on its nutritional content?
1. Rice is nutrient free mush. Only desperate folks on the verge of total starvation eat it
2. Even miniscule amounts of cow, sheep, pig or Bambi will get you all your mineral needs – IF you don’t throw the best bits away, as is current practice. (Blood, offal and fat)
3. Growing rice in paddy fields (how many folks here think that that is an essential) is a massive waste of water AND yield potential. Dry rice production grows 3,4 or 5 times more stuff, uses easily 50% less water AND saves young women (typically) weeks and months of back breaking slog.
4. Give them folks a tractor and a steel plough. Use less water, grow more rice, save the women from premature old age AND enable the rice ‘straw’ to be incorporated into the soil – improving fertility, water retention AND, captures carbon. Paddy fielding is ONLY a method of weed control. Rice is an ordinary grass, it is not a ‘wetland’ plant – contrary to what you were told at primary school and have never questioned. ??
5. Cant recall where or when but read about a fairly self-contained tribe somewhere on this planet that fed themselves with rice. If they had a ‘good year’, they would actually force-feed themselves with the excess rice. This caused them to poo an awful lot (the desired result) and they knew that putting the humanure onto their rice fields caused ever more rice to grow. What do we imagine became of those folks? Did diabetes finish them, did they poison themselves either with bacteria or by acidifying their soil and hence mobilising metal toxins. Aluminium becomes mobile at pH 5.5 or lower – it is unpleasant stuff and a VERY common part of dirt.
5.1 The Romans knew all about manure and used it to improve their crops. Great speeches and pronouncements were made on the subject of Agriculture and its modern and improving practice. They turned Southern Europe and North Africa from fields, forests and gardens into desert.
6. Wheat, corn & potatoes are the same as rice – nutrient free mush. Of the 20 or so million folks in the UK who work and actually contribute (millions work in Government but they don’t count as contributors, opposite really) – those 20 million pay £5,000 per year to fund the National Health Service (NHS). Folks in the US pay 18% of their gross salaries. A report out today on the BBC News say that the NHS will need an extra £2,000 per year from those folks inside the next 15 years. Why? Is it because they are all fat lazy can’t-be-asred slobs who don’t go to a gym? Really? Is that what you, informed by doctors and media alike, actually think?
Question: Why do supposedly healthy people (never better apparently) walk into doctor’s office, surgeries, pharmacies and hospitals and spend so much money?
PETA,
Why not read a good book about plant and animal nutrition in preference to bursting into print with rumour and wrong science?
The field is adequately understood and does not need a help along from layman conjecture. Geoff
I can’t imagine enjoying the General Tso’s chicken I had for dinner last night without it being over rice.
We humans adapt to the diets we have. Those in the far east adapted to get the most out of the staple rice. We in the west adapted to other grains the most common being wheat and most often served in the form of breads, to get the most out of them.
When westerners became POWs and slave laborers of the Japanese in WW II it was not just the lack of food, ill treatment, and lack of medical care that caused their debilitation, it was the type of food. On average US POWs of the Japanese that survived lived more than 10 years less than those that had been held by the Germans. There were several factors that contribute to that statistic but diet is part of it.
Contrary to Peta’s ramble, carbohydrate IS a required nutrient.
Animal feeds are formulated taking energy into account (ie, ensuring they have sufficient) and most of that energy comes from carbohydrate. In fact, grains are considered/discussed as ‘energy’, and soybeans, pulses etc are considered/discussed as ‘protein’.
You are making the common mistake of viewin nutrition from the affluent western human viewpoint.
PETA,
I’m a wheat rancher, but still like rice. It has two of the four essential amino acids, ie those of the 20 which humans can’t make on our own. Combined with legumes, it’s possible to make complete protein, as so many billions of people have done for so many thousands of years.
Rice also contains other vital nutrients such as vitamins.
Eat golden rice. enjoy
Just don’t eat yellow snow.
On a side note. https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1IO2PC
This whole nonsense is easy to shut down with one question – “What is worse? Slightly less vitamins or slightly more war?”
Disgraceful science publication. There is NO MENTION of the total yields anywhere in that paper. This paper is nothing but a funding fishing exercise.
This is another example of disgraceful scientific reporting: Even if it is not the principle area of investigation there should be mention of the most important parameter in terms of nutrition in marginally food deficient societies.
Total yield is almost certainly increased, AND it also provides the most likely explanation for the decline in the nutrients they measured (the decline characterised as a complicated chemical mystery in their report) … the decline in the vitamins, minerals and protein is simply dilution with the extra carbohydrate produced.
In a hungry country, the grateful consumer simply needs to eat a bigger portion of the bigger crop to get his vitamins, and gets to digest them with the comfort of a full stomach.
This below shows how this should be reported:
Pingale et al. (2017) grew rice and maize for two growing seasons under ambient (395 ppm) and enriched (550 ppm) CO2 using Free-air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) technology at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi, India.
…. elevated CO2 positively influenced the growth and productivity of both crops. Plant growth and yield parameters such as leaf area, stem dry weight, panicle dry weight, cob dry weight and grain number per cob were all significantly increased under elevated CO2. And the end result of these several enhancements was a CO2-induced increase in both rice and maize grain yield. As shown in the figure below, for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 growing seasons, elevated CO2 stimulated rice grain yields by 14 and 16.2 percent and maize yields by 13.3 and 13.8, respectively, which increases were statistically significant.
https://principia-scientific.org/higher-co2-levels-boosting-yields-for-both-rice-and-maize/
The change in plant content is true for many environmental changes, such as… irrigations. It should be expected with irrigations that for the same plants mass to have less nutrients/vitamins and more water. Nothing surprising or unexpected, isn’t it? Nevertheless, they don’t advocate avoiding irrigations and using only deserts for plant growth, to avoid the dihydrogen monoxide poisonous pollutant…
Seriously, why would the Guardian even care about nutrition – last article from them, they were siding with Thanos in the Infinity War – that whole ‘human existence is unsustainable’-thing.
The biggest flaw in this study is not taking into account nutrients in the soil because each crop reduces them. The higher the crop yields the more nutrients from the soil it takes, so if they don’t replace the nutrients in the soil, the crop will contain less nutrients even with the same CO2 levels. This factor has nothing to do with CO2 except that larger yields take more nutrients out. Replace the nutrients in the soil so how does this effect crops with higher yields? It is why farmers use crop rotations and nitrates especially need replacing.
http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/nutrient_removal_rates_by_grain_crops
The Petri-dish worldview ^тм that 97% of biologists have makes them a cookie cutter educational product of their ideological schooling. Biological training is devoid of the skills needed to envision likely futures because of a lack of an awareness of human ingenuity that alters futures as required. Yet a prepondrance of scarey futures are produced by linear thinking biologists. It’s a calling. An engineer’s view by contrast is underpinned by a problem solving mindset.
“Sustainability”, “planetary carrying capacity”, “limits to growth” are all poppycock failed scienciogy and are the hallmark of this type of shallow, zero sum ‘thought’. And, like the screen play “Groundhog day” they are destined to repeat themselves ad nauseum. The end is nigh theme has been repeated over and over again since Malthus in the latter days of the 18th Century (we were to have been buried in horse dung up to the third floor in all the major cities a century into his scenario – I kid you not!).
Pearse’s Axiom: I have come to understand, on energy-at-our-command considerations alone, supported by the abysmal failures of predictions made to the effect, that an enduring planet wide harm from manmade global disaster is not possible! Period! All ‘harm’ done by humans to the planet is axiomatically local and temporary and hardly a miniscule proportion of what a moderate bolide collision has done. Even traces of a large one show it, too, to be disappointingly temporary.
Even assuming enough ill intent could be marshalled – no issue. It is safe to disregard all such prognostications of even modest harm until it is unequivocal some action is necessary. Then, like always, the doers will take care of it.
Is the “97% of biologists”, the “97% of climate worriers” and the “97% of sheep in the USSR” a match for the 3% of dissidents? I leave the answer for homework.
Please mods, the piece is benign and on point.8