It’s Getting Drier—How Can Rice Still Be Grown?
A little over a year ago, at a community practice exchange on agriculture and climate change, I first came across the concept of “climate-friendly rice cultivation”. Last month, I joined farmers from Panzhihua in Sichuan, Wuhu in Anhui, and Fuyuan in Heilongjiang on a visit to project sites set up by the Sili Ecological Alternative Technology Centre (hereafter “Sili”) in Kunming, Pu’er and Honghe, to see how this technique takes root in a range of rural settings.
At first glance, it is a method of growing rice through aerobic cultivation: by reducing the time and area during which the soil remains waterlogged, methane emissions are cut.
Yet “greenhouse gas reduction” was not what the farmers spent the trip discussing. Under this low-water growing regime, how well the rice tillers, what the yields actually look like, and how deep a well must be dug in a drought-stricken village—these were the hot topics. Rather than “climate change”, what really mattered to them was whether this technique could deliver a better rice harvest with less water.
Uncle Li comes from Lianhe Village, Hegge Town, Yanbian County, Panzhihua. Of late, villagers have begun to recognise the importance of replanting rice for food security and self-reliance. But years of large-scale vegetable growing have drained the groundwater, and compounded by the drought effects of climate change, water supplies are growing ever more strained. Mr Wang, from Wuhu, switched to water-saving, drought-tolerant rice varieties a few years ago. Over the past two years, the early-year drought in Xihe Ancient Town, where he is based, has worsened, and summer temperatures have become more extreme.
Fuyuan is the easternmost point of China, sitting in the triangular area at the confluence of the Heilongjiang and Ussuri rivers. While there is no pressing water anxiety there, fellow farmer Mr Zhu senses the direction policy is steering local water use through government subsidies. For local rice producers, irrigating with surface water earns 60 yuan more per mu than using groundwater.
Heading south from Kunming, the climate profiles and soil conditions shift with each city and county, and the “climate-friendly rice cultivation” practices we encountered took on different shapes. “Adaptation-based mitigation of climate change”—that is how Sili’s executive director Zuo Zhi summed up their outreach approach.
What is climate-friendly rice cultivation? With production costs rising and little room for market prices to climb, how can farmers—who are already unenthusiastic about the idea—be persuaded to adopt this new mode of rice farming? And what does “adaptation-based” action actually mean? Throughout the trip, Sili’s practice offered me a way forward from these uncertainties.
I. “Climate-Friendly” Rice Cultivation
It is late August. Rice plants, now at the heading stage, rise in rows from the ridges, filling the air with waves of fragrance. Each ridge is covered with transparent plastic mulch film, and scattered pools of water collect in the furrows between them. The varieties used are conventional japonica rice—Shengnong No. 4, No. 7, and Yunjing No. 37—bred by the Yunnan Shengnong Rice Crop Research Institute and the Grain Crops Research Institute, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
“The water we apply for irrigation stays mainly in the furrows; most of the time, there is no water on the ridge beds.” Zhao Hao, project lead for Sili’s climate-friendly rice cultivation programme, stands beside the information board, explaining the ridging and furrowing method behind this low-water approach—also known as ridged furrow-irrigated moist cultivation.
In agriculture, ridging refers to heaping soil into raised, elongated beds above ground level, forming planting beds of a specific height and width—the ridge surface. Furrowing means digging channels below ground level between the ridges to facilitate drainage. This dryland ridging model is similar to the “double-ridge triple-furrow technique” I once saw in the vegetable dryland farming areas near Lanzhou. Both involve planting crops on the ridges, covered with plastic mulch film. In arid and semi-arid vegetable-growing areas, ridging and furrowing help conserve water: the furrows capture rainfall or irrigation water, while the film on the ridges reduces soil moisture evaporation and suppresses weeds.
In the context of climate change, ridging and furrowing are regarded as a climate-friendly rice cultivation method because they eliminate the need for deep flooding, thereby reducing the likelihood of methane emissions from paddy fields.
In traditionally flooded paddies, the continuous submersion deprives the soil of oxygen, creating an anaerobic environment. In such conditions, soil microbes constantly break down organic matter—crop stubble, root residues and other debris settling beneath the water—releasing small molecules step by step, which ultimately, under the action of methanogens, are converted into methane and released into the atmosphere.
While ridging and furrowing help rice paddies cut methane emissions, they also improve field management efficiency and increase work intensity.
A villager I met in the Wagong Community told me that before this 100-mu demonstration field was planted using the ridging and furrowing method, it required 15 people to manage it, handling pesticide spraying and fertilisation; this year, that number has dropped to six. Once the water is reduced, workers can walk into the field, and the work is somewhat easier than managing a flooded paddy.
At another experimental demonstration site in the Wagong Community, Sili also uses the upland rice direct point-seeding technique, planting traditional heirloom rice varieties from various regions—skipping the steps of raising seedlings and transplanting them, and sowing seeds directly onto ridges covered with plastic mulch film or other ground cover, using proper mulching to suppress weeds and retain moisture.
This dryland technique requires no flooding at all, fitting the profile of climate-friendly rice cultivation. Although in terms of yield, upland rice produces roughly 300 kg per mu, about 200 kg less per mu than flooded cultivation.
But direct seeding saves more labour than transplanting, and upland rice has greater drought tolerance, making it well suited to Yunnan’s worsening drought conditions.
According to the 2024 Yunnan Province Climate Bulletin, Yunnan has experienced six consecutive years of below-average rainfall. Particularly in winter and spring, varying degrees of drought affect the province. Over the past five years, drought distribution has spread from the core drought zones in central Yunnan and areas to its east and south into north-western, western, and southern Yunnan.
Two months ago, in Yongning Town and Youmi Village in Lijiang, I met smallholder farmers who had begun small-scale trials of upland rice direct seeding; drought was the main reason they were willing to give it a try.
II. Who to Partner with for Outreach?
Smallholders generally lack enthusiasm for growing staples such as rice. On the price front, the market value of rice is far lower than that of cash crops like fruit and vegetables. On the cost side, farmers also face rising prices of agricultural inputs and labour. Under these conditions, when they encounter more severe drought during the transplanting season, the simplest and most effective choice is to abandon rice, diverting their limited land and effort to more profitable crops—or heading to town for wage work.
“Without subsidies, rice growing is very hard to make a profit from. There is no reason to ask them to shoulder such a heavy social responsibility as tackling climate change,” said Zuo Zhi. Faced with this reality, Sili has chosen to partner with grassroots organisations of various kinds—agricultural technology stations are among their main partners at present.
These institutions tend to have greater motivation and a stronger stake in promoting rice cultivation.
As grassroots implementers of administrative bodies, agricultural technology stations bear the responsibility of ensuring grain production while also being tasked with technology extension. In particular, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Yunnan Province has, since 2022, been promoting dryland technology for hybrid rice across the province to cope with increasingly severe spring drought. These factors form the basis for Sili’s cooperation with agricultural technology stations at county and village level.
“Yunnan has very distinct dry and rainy seasons, and in recent years, rainfall during the rainy season has decreased. Especially in March and April, when transplanting should be happening, it is still the dry season—rainfall is so low that seedlings simply cannot be planted.” A staff member at the agricultural technology station in Shiping County, Honghe Prefecture, explained to the farmers who had come from all over. This is one of the first drought-affected counties in Yunnan to begin promoting low-water rice cultivation.
Behind the staff member lie the contiguous trial fields of Doudiwan Village, Yilong Town. Last year, this rice field—planted using the ridged furrow-irrigated moist cultivation method—yielded around 700 kg per mu. Along the shores of Yilong Lake, approximately 3,400 mu of rice fields are grown using this method, with technical support provided by Sili.
A staff member at the town’s agricultural technology station told us that to fulfil the grain production targets, they had put in tremendous effort to persuade villagers to give up their land for rice.
“Land rent here in Shiping is 4,000 yuan per mu,” Zhao Hao added. If this land were used for vegetables, output per mu could reach 10,000 to 20,000 yuan. Some vegetable varieties can yield four or five harvests, and are sold as far as Beijing and markets across Southeast Asia—the annual value per mu can even exceed this.
To encourage villagers to commit their land to rice, the agricultural technology station not only provides free seed, organic fertiliser and other essential agricultural inputs, but also arranges coordinated aerial spraying and mechanised harvesting for the paddies. They further offer ecological compensation of 1,500 yuan per mu to farmers in the area who grow rice.
Uncle Li exclaimed upon hearing this. “Where we come from, you’d think you had won the lottery with a few dozen or a hundred yuan!” In Panzhihua, he had never heard of subsidies anywhere near this generous.
In terms of what the land could earn locally per mu, the amount is not particularly high. But as a subsidy for rice production, it is already a substantial compensation. The funding comes from Shiping County’s ecological subsidy scheme for protecting the Yilong Lake catchment. Yilong Lake is one of Yunnan’s nine major plateau lakes, and as a lakeside village, Doudiwan also bears the ecological protection duty of safeguarding this plateau lake.
Rice cultivation meets the agricultural technology station’s food security targets and helps protect the Yilong Lake catchment.
Fertiliser left unabsorbed during potato production accumulates in the soil in large quantities. Without the paddy to absorb it, this excess would be washed into the lake by rainfall, increasing the risk of eutrophication in Yilong Lake. Rotating in rice not only meets food security needs but also contributes to the ecological protection of Yilong Lake.
III. Adaptation-Based Action
Nor does every locality sit on the shore of a plateau lake. In areas without ecological protection mandates, what agricultural technology stations care most about is still how to fulfil grain production targets. “In the outreach process, we spend most of our energy finding various points of alignment with policy,” said Zuo Zhi.
Staff at agricultural technology stations across different areas vary in how deeply they grasp policy and the angles from which they implement it. Some places focus on how to solve the challenge of rice cultivation; others prioritise how to carry out conservation tillage. Every time they enter a new area, they need to find points of consensus that fit the local context, adapting the promotion of techniques to the specific realities on the ground.
On the technical side, Sili is exploring new models to balance producers’ interests. In their Wagong Community demonstration zone in Kunming, we saw upland rice intercropped with citrus trees. Zhao Hao added that this design mainly reflects the low returns from upland rice—fruit trees offer an opportunity to supplement part of a farmer’s income. Moreover, intercropping fruit trees in upland rice paddies does not trigger any change in the land-use designation.
Beyond partnering with agricultural technology stations, Sili is also trying to work with social organisations widely active across Yunnan. These organisations often bring a wealth of community experience in Yunnan’s villages, and inevitably have dealings with the day-to-day farming of individual smallholders. Through such partnerships, Sili reaches the scattered smallholders in Yunnan’s mountainous areas who still have an appetite for rice cultivation.
We saw exactly this kind of collaboration in Qielong Middle Village. The partnership between local villager Che Zhixiong and Sili was brokered largely by Village Eye, which has been working in the hamlet for years. Village Eye is a social organisation that encourages villagers to use film and photography to document the everyday production and life of their community.
Che Zhixiong is a villager who works with Village Eye in Qielong Middle Village. After returning to his homeland, he continued to tend his family’s terraced fields. He believes that the terraces and rice cultivation are an indispensable part of Hani ethnic culture.
Yet in recent years, local rice production has faced the twin challenges of labour outflow and water scarcity. Water is a problem that technology can help improve. So Village Eye reached out to Sili for a partnership.
This year marks their first year of collaboration, and Sili has designed a range of schemes across Che Zhixiong’s family terraces.
Based on the local pattern of less water on the upper slopes and more at the bottom, they use dry rice direct-seeding technology on the highest terraces, ridged furrow-irrigated moist cultivation on the middle tier, and the traditional flooded cultivation on the lowest. Each method is planted with both local old varieties and hybrid varieties side by side, serving as a controlled comparison.
Zhao Hao, standing beside rice plants taller than himself, said to the farmers and visitors gathered by the terraces, “Yuan Longping’s ‘Dream of Resting Under the Crops’ has already come true here.”
This small plot of rice towering above a person is a local old variety called Hongniao Niaoneng, which can reach a height of two metres at its tallest. “We’ve found that the drought tolerance of these traditional old varieties is remarkable—throughout the entire growing season it relies solely on natural rainfall; we never added a single drop of irrigation,” he said.
Hongniao Niaoneng is also the best-performing of several old varieties trialled in Qielong Middle Village. Through sample yield estimation, Sili technician Qin Yuchao predicts that this variety has excellent yield-boosting potential under the ridged furrow-irrigation model. The dry direct-seeded Hongniao Niaoneng plot we visited has already demonstrated yield gains compared with traditional flooded cultivation.
In Qielong Middle Village, other rice varieties have also shown varying degrees of yield increase after switching to dryland or moist cultivation.
On the morning we left Qielong Middle Village, Che Zhixiong led us to a cliff overlooking a neighbouring hamlet. Below the cliff lay a vast sweep of terraces, drawing repeated gasps from the visiting farmers: “Wow! Wow!” From an outsider’s perspective, such a unique combination of landscape and planting tradition would truly be a loss if it could not be preserved.
But if maintenance lapses, compounded by drought, the character of the terraces can be destroyed.
Standing on a high terrace, Zuo Zhi pointed into the distance. “If you look closely, you’ll see that many of the terraces have already been converted to maize.” He went on to explain that without long-term water retention and without farmers reinforcing the bunds each growing season, heavy rain and flooding can easily cause the terraces to collapse.
From a purely technical standpoint, the ridged furrow-irrigation method can, to a certain extent, balance the tension between farmers’ water shortages and the need to maintain the terraces. Zuo Zhi felt this was another expression of how “climate-friendly rice cultivation” adapts to local needs—accounting for environmental change while also, to some degree, meeting the demands of local cultural continuity.
This year, Sili added seven or eight new project sites across Yunnan similar to those in Qielong Middle Village and Yilong Town.
But Qin Yuchao was quick to add a note of caution: in some locations, yields under dry direct seeding are affected by pests and diseases, weeds, or poor field management. Whether the same variety performs better under direct seeding or under ridged moist cultivation is not always certain. “It really comes down to adapting to local conditions—tailoring the approach to each place.”
IV. Beneath the Climate Veneer, Rice Cultivation Is a Solid Technique
For a producer, whether a technique is adopted depends on whether it meets practical needs—whether it can boost yields, cut water use, or make the rice itself display better resilience, among other things. It emerged from the macro context of mitigating the climate change driven by greenhouse gases, yet Sili has gradually found a local context for promoting it in Yunnan. Still, this outreach is only just getting off the ground; how it can be continuously refined, and whether it can suit a wider range of regions, remains to be tested.
Although overall drying is already the prevailing trend across Yunnan, this rainy season Kunming has seen unusually heavy rainfall. At the upland rice trial field in the Wagong Community, Wuhua District, the newly installed sprinkler irrigation system has been temporarily redundant. “Last year’s rainy season was bone dry—we racked our brains for every trick in the book, and now look, it’s pouring like this,” Qin Yuchao grumbled. More extreme climate change has, inevitably, brought more uncertainty to their adaptation experiments.
Editor: Pei Dan