Rice is an essential food for literally billions of people. But it requires enormous amounts of water and emits huge amounts of methane while growing, due to being underwater.
However, a new system of growing rice, the SRI method, increases yields, uses much less water, and emits no methane.
If the SRI method was applied to 20 million hectares of land under rice cultivation in India, the country could meet its food grain objectives of 220 million tonnes of grain by 2012 instead of 2050.
Contrary to popular belief, rice is not an aquatic plant and the main reason it is submerged in water is for controlling weeds.