Britain’s climate typically supports the cultivation and growth of crops like wheat and barley. Cultivating paddy rice is not a great idea in the United Kingdom due to its temperate climate. Preparing for rice cultivation in Britain involves adapting different and unique agricultural practices. While rice isn’t grown there, it is largely imported and consumed by the population.
Nadine Mitschunas, the UK’s first and only rice grower, from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, says that when she tells people that she is growing rice, they assume it is a joke. Nadine, who has been leading the study, told the BBC, “Nobody has tried this before, but with climate change, we have crops that, 10 years ago, we wouldn’t have thought would be viable. In 10 years, rice could be a completely perfect crop for us.”
The news of UK-grown paddy grabbed global media attention last week. This comes at a time when Britain has recorded its hottest summer since 1884. According to Farmer Sarah Taylor, whose land the rice was cultivated on, in Cambridgeshire, the crops in four small paddy fields are doing well.
This experiment, in partnership with Sarah Taylor and her husband, Craig, is to see the foods that can be grown in Britain in the future. This is the very edge Prof Richard Pywell, leading the UKCEH project, told the BBC, “This is the very edge of where rice can grow at the moment, and it would be a risky crop for farmers to plant commercially.”
Researchers believe that Britain’s climate is rapidly changing, and if annual average temperatures warm by between 2 and 4C then rice could be grown widely in the United Kingdom.
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