Safeguarding rice production and the natural environment is crucial for ensuring food security, climate resilience, and sustainable development. In the IRRI report on “The Nature-Climate-Food Nexus”, it is explained that “…rice cultivation does not occur in isolation: it both depends upon and reshapes surrounding ecosystems.” The report examines how rice systems need to adjust and align with shifting water and climate conditions to remain resilient. The Stockholm Resilience Center identified nine critical Earth system processes that maintain the planet’s stability and resilience, and when these “planetary boundaries” are crossed, may bring irreversible damage and increased risks to the world’s biospheres.
Six out of nine of these planetary boundaries have already been crossed.
To prevent these disruptions from intensifying due to mounting pressure from deforestation, wetland loss, and input-intensive farming, it is crucial to reframe rice agriculture as an essential component of broader landscapes. “Ecosystem integrity underpins rice production from soil microbiota to wetlands to forests to mangroves and atmospheric moisture cycles. Nature is not a backdrop to farming; it is its foundation,” stated IRRI Researcher Ben Kemp.
For example, forests help regulate local and regional climates through the process of evapotranspiration. This moisture can be recycled several times as winds move it across continents, often concentrating into long, narrow “atmospheric rivers” (ARs) that deliver heavy rainfall to distant regions, including major rice-growing areas. Forests also transport wet-season rainfall into monsoon basins, which helps extend monsoon duration and maintain soil moisture during challenging cropping seasons. This means that when deforestation takes place, this recycled moisture supply is reduced, so farms downwind receive less or more erratic rainfall and face drier conditions.
Rivers and wetlands, on the other hand, serve as buffers and nutrient recyclers. They store floodwater during wet periods, which is necessary during dry seasons, and they also mitigate disaster risks. For example, Cambodia’s Tonlé Sap Lake reverses its flow every monsoon season, from the Mekong River to the lake. The rate of this reverse flow has slowed down by 56% since the 1960s, resulting in less water and nutrients being delivered to fields downstream. This also clearly illustrates the vulnerability of ecological systems and their significant effect on cropping systems.
The way forward is to create agro-ecological synergies by reframing rice farming and policy within the nature–climate–food nexus, thereby transforming trade-offs into long-term synergies between food production and healthy ecosystems. Rice policies must take an integrated approach to governance and planning by strengthening sustainable forests, wetlands, and watershed management. Moreover, financing must reward conservation so that communities can secure both their livelihoods and environmental benefits. To push scaling and encourage adoption of sustainable rice farming practices, extension work must focus on environmentally friendly practices, and standards must be maintained through rice certification labels to honor those who practice sustainable farm management.
The Nature-Food-Climate Nexus is the principle behind IRRI’s strategy for the next five years. “Orienting IRRI’s strategy towards nature-based solutions is essential because the long-term resilience of rice production depends fundamentally on the integrity of the ecosystems that sustain it. As the report shows, forests, wetlands, groundwater systems, and biodiversity are not peripheral concerns—they are the living infrastructure that regulates rainfall, stabilizes water flows, maintains soil fertility, and buffers climatic shocks,” said Dr. Alisher Mirzabaev, IRRI senior scientist for policy analysis and climate change.
With six of the nine planetary boundaries already exceeded, continuing to view rice production as separate from the natural systems surrounding it is simply no longer viable. By prioritizing nature-based solutions, IRRI supports food security, climate mitigation, and environmental stewardship in a unified way.
READ MORE about the report “The Nature-Climate-Food Nexus: Exploring the Interconnections and Synergies Across Rice Ecosystems, Forests, Wetlands, and Climate Pathway” at hdl.handle.net/10568/178458
