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Chinese scientists put rice grown in seawater on the nation's tables
Rice grown on a commercial scale in diluted seawater has, for the first time, made it into the rice bowls of ordinary Chinese people after a breakthrough in food production following more than four decades of efforts by farmers, researchers, government agencies and businesses.
[...] China has one million square kilometres of waste land, an area the size of Ethiopia, where plants struggle to grow because of high salinity or alkalinity levels in the soil. Agricultural scientist Yuan Longping, known as China's "father of hybrid rice", told mainland media that if a tenth of such areas were planted with rice species resistant to salt, they could boost China's rice production by nearly 20 per cent. They could produce 50 million tonnes of food, enough to feed 200 million people, he said. A research team led by Yuan, 87, recently doubled the output of seawater rice, which in the past was too low for large-scale production.
[...] Last month, at the nation's largest seawater rice farm, in Qingdao, the output of Yuan's seawater rice exceeded 4.5 tonnes a hectare, according to state media reports. [...] Each kilogram of "Yuan Mi" costs 50 yuan (US$7.50), or eight times as much as ordinary rice. It is sold in packs weighing 1kg, 2kg, 5kg and 10kg.
[...] The seawater rice developed by Yuan and other research teams is not irrigated by pure seawater, but mixes it with fresh water to reduce the salt content to 6 grams per litre. The average litre of seawater contains five times as much salt. Researchers said it would take years more research to develop a rice species that could grow in pure seawater.
Professor Zhu Xiyue, an economics and policy expert at the national rice institute, said the seawater rice project would help secure China's food supply by turning "waste land to green fields". "The output may be low and price high, but they can increase China's total area of arable land, which can be used and save many lives in hard times," Zhou said.
Related: Where's the Golden Rice?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday October 30 2017, @07:17AM (4 children)
How to ruin farmland: put saltwater on it. Even mildly salty water.
So why do this?
China is the worlds biggest importer of rice, but China's demand could be met 4 fold by buying rice from either India or Thailand.
(Oddly, China also exports rice).
The story suggests they will be using waste land, but careful reading suggest they are blending two different stories and that the wasteland is already too salty to grow rice, and the land they used seawater on was not salty.
(quote> nation's largest seawater rice farm, in Qingdao
Qingdao is a coastal city. Which is why they have sea water.
Yet the wastelands already too salty [i-scmp.com] to grow rice, are no where near the sea.
So the implied solution here is to pump saltwater thousands of miles inland to already salt burdened farm land?
Seems unlikely that it the REAL plan, and more likely something the journalist imagined. They aren't dumb enough to salt poison their own land.
The best you can expect is that oceanside salt mashes (already critical habitat), will be re-purposed to grow the newly discovered old strain of rice. What could possibly go wrong? Its just swamp land, right?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday October 30 2017, @07:37AM (3 children)
They actually don't need to import rice, at least not for rice shortage reasons. I suspect they are doing it for diversity and/or to cater to different tastes/consumers. The very last paras of TFA read:
Supplementary, the new variety of rice seems to fetch good prices - for now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 30 2017, @07:59AM (2 children)
You can find plenty of rices with a "unique texture and pleasant flavour" and the "potential" health benefits could be the usual Chinese bullshit at work [wikipedia.org]. I think the price is mainly due to it being an expensive novelty that hasn't been scaled up enough to become cheap. They can sell all that they produce because production is low enough, they only need to convince a few people to try a small bag from time to time.
On whether it is a good idea to grow this stuff, I'm not sure. Maybe it will end up on Mars like modified potatoes [qz.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 30 2017, @08:57AM (1 child)
Meh, just add salt to the water when cooking regular rice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 30 2017, @02:51PM
Mm, I prefer the salt from the soy sauce I put on the rice after it's cooked.
Many people use slightly saline water for cooking pasta as well. To each their own.
I think we may be missing something crucial to this discussion, however!