Cows are often chief among the arguments of methane emissions, but there's an elephant lingering in the room... Rice.
By flooding paddies, soil goes anaerobic. This causes decomposing organic matter to turn into methane instead of carbon dioxide. While methane gobbling bacteria likely abound, by some estimates rice production is responsible for the following: 12% global methane emissions 3% of anthropogenic warming 55% of total greenhouse gas emissions by agricultural soils.
Can't give up your stir fry? Try noodles or more veggies instead of rice. Eating out? Pick the option without rice. It's hard to pinpoint which plant crop is the worst for the environment, but rice undoubtedly ranks among the top if not THE top of the list due to it's massive off gassing, massive water demands, fertilizer needs, and being one of the most heavily sprayed crops.
Monoculture agriculture has failed humanity time and time again, rice agriculture was born under slavery and now consumes vast swaths of land to fulfill demand. It's time we divest from rice. Going for starches? Look towards perennial plant sources or wean off of them all together except for rare occasion. Food alternatives abound, and we need to switch to perennial, diverse, crop and animal systems as the food production of the future.
Note: Manasobu Fukuoka demonstrated rice can be grown in an ecologically sound, organic way while boosting yields, but this is still a rarity and far from the norm. The average rice consumer is not consuming this rice.”
~ Frenchie Powell
“Ag FUBAR. And like a third of the world's population is dependent on this anti-regenerative food source that serves as little more than a starvation preventative. Certainly not as an all-around source of complete nutrition.
Leaves one to wonder how much grass-fed beef they could produce year-round in that area if it were allowed to grow out as managed pasture? And, what the nutritional trade-offs would be.”
Some choices and some hope:
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