Rice farming in NZ: Ecologist says warmer climate opens door for local production

Yuki Fukuda, an ecologist who studied horticulture at Lincoln University, says New Zealand should grow rice locally. Photo / RNZ, Kadambari Raghukumar

By Kadambari Gladding of RNZ

Yuki Fukuda says as New Zealand’s appetite for rice increases, growing more of the staple crop here makes sense.

Fukuda is an ecologist who studied horticulture at Lincoln University.

She said growing rice locally will give NZ more food security for a crop which is currently entirely imported.

“There’s zero commercial production in NZ, so we are importing about $95 million worth of rice from overseas, which equates to about 85,000 tons, which is a lot of rice being imported, and there’s emissions with the transport as well.”

New Zealand imports from four main countries, she said.

“Thailand, Australia, Vietnam and India, but because these countries are close to equators, they’ve been hammered by climate change impact recently.

“And India, particularly, is the most populous country in the world with 1.4 billion, but they are looking to add maybe 250 million people over the next 25 years, so they will need to meet the domestic demand more and more.”

In some parts of Asia, it has become too hot to successfully grow rice, she said.

“And also the rising sea level, some rice fields have had too much salinity in the water, and ironically, for NZ it’s becoming warmer, so it’s becoming more and more suitable to grow crops like rice.”

It is also a zero-waste crop, she said.

“You could make a house out of it, clothing, dairy materials, everything from horticulture, it was used as a mulch or ropes to carry like a backpack, or even a bag to transport rice was made out of rice straw.

“So, it has culturally significant meaning to me.”

Her small two-metre by two-metre paddy yielded a decent harvest last year, she said.

And similar rice-growing experiments are going on in Kaiwaka, the Earthsong Eco-Village in Auckland and northern Waikato.

In Japanese culture, rice is a revered crop, she said.

“We have a saying in Japan that one single grain of rice has 88 gods dwelling in it, and it’s really precious, so you don’t waste it.

“And once you start growing rice, you really realise how precious it is, so you won’t waste a grain.”

Fukuda has just bought a hand-operated thresher with a grant she received from the Nelson City Council and plans to run workshops about what her experiments in growing rice have taught her.

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