"Ricists" Defeated at IPCC-3 in Bangkok

May 15 (EIRNS)--The main objective of the organizers of last week's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 3 conference in Bangkok, was to force agreement to drastic and insane changes in rice-growing. China, India, Thailand, Indonesia and other major rice-growing nations were put under extreme pressure by the IPCC delegates. The excuse was that present methods of paddy cultivation produce methane and carbon dioxide, which are supposedly hastening climate change under the unscientific theory of anthropogenic global warming. But the obvious effect would be to imperil and severely curtail food supplies for the 3.5 billion people, mostly very poor, who depend on rice to survive. This obvious effect is the real purpose for the IPCC climate fanatics who believe, with Al Gore, that the world has too many people.

The good news is that the rice-growing nations won.

At least 114 countries grow rice, and more than 50 have an annual production of 100,000 tons or more. Asian farmers produce about 90% of the total, with two countries, China and India, growing more than half the total crop. For most rice-producing countries where annual production exceeds 1 million tons, rice is the staple food. In Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam, rice provides 50-80% of total calories consumed. The typical Asian farmer plants rice primarily to meet family needs. Nevertheless, nearly half the crop goes to market; most of that is sold locally. Only 6-7% of world rice production is traded internationally. In other words, there is no rice cartel, because there is very little surplus.

The IPCC delegates, who had a long brawl with the major rice-growing nations, argued that anaerobic bacteria, residing in the water that sustains the paddy plants, generate methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxides, which are then carried to the air by the stems of the paddy plants. Hence, they demanded that the farmers must drain the paddy fields once the paddy is matured. This demand was rejected, on the ground, first, that it would be an additional cost to the farmers; second, that the water sits there seeping into the ground slowly, making the ground moist for winter crops; and finally, that the paddy fields are seldom filled with the amount of water required, because rains do not come all at one time. Under these circumstances the farmers could not risk letting the water out.

The second demand was to release land for other crops (China was praised for releasing 10 million hectares of land from rice to other crops) by using hybrid, high productivity rice. That argument was turned down because it would create the threat that monoculture of any crop poses.

Finally, according to those who were present at the conference, there was a shadow of major multinationals hanging over the whole issue. The IPCC was pushing a lobby that talked of growing rice from seeds, rather than growing from seedlings as at present, because it requires less water. But the seeds will be produced by multinationals, making rice production -- some 625 million tons of it annually -- dependent on whatever conditions these multinationals set, at the behest of the powers-that-be.