A look at the contribution rice makes to methane emissions

1. Wide of rice field with rice plant in foreground 2. Various of farmers working in rice field 3. Wide of people going into small hut 4. Close-up of rice being served 5. Tilt-up of woman picking up rice with her hand and eating 6. Wide of women eating in hut 7. Wide of entrance to International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) 8. Wide of farmers working in IRRI rice field 9. Pan of IRRI scientists walking and talking 10. SOUNDBITE: (English) Doctor Reiner Wassman, International Rice Research Institute Climate Change Expert: "The unique feature of rice production is that the crop fields are flooded for substantial time over the growing season. There's no other crop that grows under this kind of conditions, and that has some implications. The water cover cuts off the oxygen supply to the soil. So in every other crop you would have decay of organic material that would lead to carbon dioxide, you can say that this is part of the cycle because carbon dioxide is then taken up by the plant again, and so the cycle is closed. When we have no oxygen then methane is produced, which is another product of the decay and we call it anaerobic decay, so without oxygen. Methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas; in fact it's 20 times, 21 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. So this methane that is reaching the atmosphere is contributing to global warming." 11. Various of flooded rice field 12. SOUNDBITE: (English) Doctor Reiner Wassman, International Rice Research Institute Climate Change Expert: "This is an experiment here where my colleague, Yas Hosen, is testing different water management. So water management is a very important factor, basically meaning the moment that a rice field is flooded, permanently flooded, then the emissions are high. The moment a rice field is drained, and that is something which will occur specially in the future more and more often because there's more scarcity of water, we are expecting more competition for water, then the emissions will go down, the methane emissions." 13. Farm worker checking box 14. Mid of glass box encasing selected rice plants in field 15. Close-up of hand pointing at emission monitoring chart 16. Wide of scientist and person next to rice field discussing the monitoring process 17. SOUNDBITE: (English) Doctor Reiner Wassman, International Rice Research Institute Climate Change Expert: "Rice is, although it looks very uniform rice fields, but if you look a bit closer you will see that there are very different systems, there are very different soils, there are also very different management techniques. So our message is that we have to be very specific where and when we want to reduce methane emission and then a very targeted approach is to reduce it, not as a blanket strategy, not just saying okay just drain it and then reducing the emission, I think then you can actually do more harm than good. So we think that one would have always to know exactly or to define exactly what is the region, which is the system where we want to reduce it." 18. Various of glass box with trapped gas emissions 19. Wide of lid of glass box closing 20. Wide of Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner, Jasper Inventor, speaking on microphone at screening of "An Inconvenient Truth" 21. Audience applauding 22. Wide of people watching film, audience in foreground, screen in background 23. SOUNDBITE: (English) Jasper Inventor, Greenpeace Climate and Energy Campaigner: 24. Farmer harvesting rice 25. Wide of rice field STORYLINE: Rice is the staple food of Asia, its primary agricultural crop and a main source of livelihood to (m) millions in the region, but according to scientists in the Philippines, it is now also a threat to the environment. Keyword-climate change You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/a261ce7d0fc206fcb3b6dc0afaf4c811 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork