Here is the answer; it will cause extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, changes in the spatial and timing distribution and intensity of rainfalls, tropical storms, soil degradation and salt intrusion. Also, floods have both direct and indirect impacts on rice production such as damage on rice fields, rice production means and infrastructure e.g. roads and dams. During drought, it will reduce water supplies and has strong effects on grain yield as it reduces spikelet fertility. More importantly, rising sea level causes an increase in soil salinity, displacement of crop production areas and reduction of rice production.
According to the Thailand’s first inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, for the base year 1989, the total GHG emission was 122 Tg CO2 and 7.0 Mg CH4. Rice farming generated the largest amount of Thailand’s methane emission, accounting for 89.8% of total methane emissions and live stock.
So, what we can do?
Dr. Apichart Pongsrihadulchai, Advisor to Director-General of the Rice Department advises how we can reduce gas emission on rice production;
Boonyarit Homchan has been a farmer for long time. He tried his rice crop following Dr. Apirchart’s advise and he found that his rice crop improved and he also can reduce gas emission by doing the four methodologies.
Atthawit Watcharapongchai, Project Manager of Better Rice Initiative Project reaffirmed that farmers are able scale up their rice yield to meet the demand of international market if their rice product is in line with international standard.
These are the successful result of doing the four methodologies to reduce climate change. What about you?