Super rice that can withstand flooding

Rice is one of the most important crops in the world, being the most important food for the largest part of the Asia, the most populated continent in the world. Unlike other crops, rice can withstand wet conditions; in fact, it can grow quite well in wet conditions. This however, doesn't mean that rice can withstand flooding, and surviving long periods being under water.

However this isn't the case with the so called “Submarino rice” that was bred by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and is able to survive 2 weeks of being under water, but only if the flooding occurs before flowering.

This Submarino rice has been widely adopted by rice farmers across the Philippines, a country that is frequently being hit by excessive rains and flooding.

The adoption of this new type of rice included involving farmers in early field trials and seed multiplication efforts across the entire country where farmers were given valuable information, and were educated with different campaigns and materials.

Thanks to a science and the Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA) farmers across the country now have a decent chance to fight against frequent flooding.

Given the ongoing and ever-increasing climate change phenomenon science will have a gigantic task to bred new sorts of crops that would be able to survive increasing temperatures. If science fails in this task there will be lot more hungry people in the world in years to come.