Rice Farming Science Features on ABC’s Landline

March 31, 2025

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is at the forefront of efforts to develop new rice varieties that emit less Greenhouse Gases, are more resilient to climate change and are more nutrition. A lot hinges on their efforts, with the crop a staple food for four billion people daily and central to the livelihood of 150 million rice farmers.

These vital research efforts and collaborations were the focus of a recent journalist visit to the Philippines organised by the Crawford Fund. With financial support from the DFAT Australia-ASEAN Council, the winner of the Crawford Fund Food Security Journalism Award, Pip Courtney, the well-known presenter of ABC TV Landline, travelled to the Philippines with our Director of Outreach, Cathy Reade and a Landline crew with cameraman Glen Armstrong and sound and photography specialist Cam Lang.

Low Carbon Rice: Cutting the carbon footprint of rice featured on national TV on 23 March, with an additional online feature titled Rice farming science in race to reduce grain’s climate change impacts.

“When it comes to crops, rice is the biggest emitter of methane accounting for more than 10 per cent of ag’s methane emissions. At the world’s biggest rice research centre in the Philippines, scientists are working out ways of cutting rice’s carbon footprint, while developing new rice varieties which can withstand climate change. And, Australian growers are set to benefit as well,” said Pip introducing the story.

The program highlighted the work at IRRI by a broad group of passionate scientists.

Climate change scientist Ando Radanielson, who we hope to have at our conference this year, explained how her research team is targeting the three most potent greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane. They have found that methane emissions can be cut by 70 per cent by alternating wetting and drying of paddy soils.

The program also focused on the importance of IRRI’s gene bank, housing 132,000 of the world’s 400,000 rice varieties, in developing new and improved varieties with higher yields, tolerance to diseases, drought and flooding, or with improved nutrition. The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) is fast-tracking results for producers all around the world – including in Australia.

“The visit to cover this important work would not have been possible without on-the-ground assistance by the many IRRI staff involved, including Director General, Yvonne Pinto and also World Food Prize winner, Dr Howdy Bouis,” said Cathy Reade, the Crawford Fund’s Director of Special Projects.

“The Crawford Fund would also like to thank the DFAT Australia-ASEAN Council for support for the visit. We are now focussed on the remaining two journalist visits they are supporting, to Indonesia and Vietnam,” said Cathy.

The time with Landline in the Philippines also included interviews regarding African swine fever research underway in the Philippines. The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), with Canada’s International Research Development Centre, has partnered with the University of The Philippines Los Banos to help pig farmers control outbreaks, aiming to eradicate the disease, and stop it from spreading to other countries, including Australia.

The resulting story aired on Landline on 02 March, Disease Defence: Keeping ASF out of Australia.

For over 30 years, the Crawford Fund has been arranging visits by Australian journalists to experience and report on agricultural research for development projects, as part of efforts to spread good news stories about the impact and mutual benefit of work to improve food and nutrition security.

The Crawford Fund has launched its 2025 Food Security Journalism Award. This award enables the winning journalist to undertake a ‘seeing is believing’ visit to a developing country, interacting with passionate researchers and local farmers, and then sharing their stories with the Australian public.

If you are a journalist who has reported in Australia in the last year on a food and nutrition security issue, and you are you keen to experience first-hand some agricultural projects that are changing lives for the better in a developing country, then please send us your best food security related story!