Who doesn’t love a Chinese or Indian takeaway on a Friday night! To keep all those millions happy and – more importantly – the 3.5 billion people for whom rice is their staple food from going hungry, researchers have been conducting the Long-Term Continuous Cropping Experiment (LTCCE) on a particularly busy one-hectare field in the Philippines.
Begun in 1962 by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the world’s longest-running rice research project addresses the dual challenges presented by a growing population and rapidly diminishing arable land area. Intensive farming is the key, but on a planet with finite resources it also has to be sustainable. That is where the LTCCE comes in.
Over the last 55 years this living field laboratory has shown that with the right application of fertiliser, enough irrigation water, the correct choice of high-yielding pest- and disease- resistant rice varieties and good crop management practices, it is in fact possible to grow three crops of rice each year on the same piece of ground, without adversely affecting the soil’s fertility. A suitably sustainable solution!
Looks as though Britain’s favourite takeaways are safe for the foreseeable future.
