Indonesia and the Philippines already import a lot of rice. The drop was sharpest in South-East Asia, where the rate of increase fell from 1.4% to 0.4%. Yields increased by an annual average of only 0.9% over the past decade, down from around 1.3% in the decade before that, according to data from the UN. Yet Asia’s rice productivity growth is falling. And only in the richest Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea, are bread and pasta eating into rice’s monopoly as the continental staple. That growth is projected to drive a 30% rise in rice demand, according to a study published in the journal Nature Food. By 2050 there will be 5.3bn people in Asia, up from 4.7bn today, and 2.5bn in Africa, up from 1.4bn. The crop that fuelled the rise of 60% of the world’s population is becoming a source of insecurity and threat. No mere victim of global warming, rice cultivation is also a major cause of it, because paddy fields emit a lot of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Rising temperatures are withering crops more frequent floods are destroying them. The land, water and labour that rice production requires are becoming scarcer. Global rice demand-in Africa as well as Asia-is soaring.
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