LNV 1812002

1
Water saving in rice ecosystems
Converting inundated rice cultivation into dry
rice Dr. Huib Hengsdijk - Plant Research
International
2
Why research on rice ecosystems?

• heavy water consumer 5000 l/kg rice

• important food crop 50 of the world population
• in Asia 80 of caloric intake is rice
• food security lt--gt water security

3
Rice wet or dry

• land preparation
• weed control
• water buffer
• inflow of nutrients
• nitrogen fixing organisms
• dissolving nutrients
• controlling acidification
• diseases
• fish

4
Changing conditions - changing practices

• Labor requirement and direct seeding
• Land pressure and multiple cropping
• Water scarcity and water-less-rice production
• Global climate change and methane emission in
  rice fields

5
Solutions?
demand side
supply side
More crop per drop!
6
Project aims

• Strengthening international rice networks and
  capacity building

7
Project approach

• Integrated analysis and design of water saving
  rice ecosystems at different scales
• field empirical resarch (testing management
  practices)
• farm empirical/model research (survey/farm
  modelling)
• region model research (hydraulogical simulation
  model)

Field
Farm
Region
8
Participants
Plant Research International Netherlands Devel
opment Economics group Netherlands WL Delft
hydraulics Netherlands Nanjing Agric.
Univ. China Jiangxi Agric. Univ. China Tam
il Nadu Agric. Univ. India Central Research
Institute for Food Crops Indonesia University of
Antananarivo Madagascar Cornell Intern.
Institute for Food, Agric. and Dev. USA IRRI,
WARDA CGIAR
9
(i) Benefits/deliverables

• Field level
• environmental and management conditions
• demonstration
• Farm level
• Impact of new management
• policy intervention measures
• Regional level
• information on local water demand and supply
• planning tool

10
(ii) Benefits/deliverables

• Knowledge transfer
• Netherlands lt------gt developing countries
• International exposure