According to a statement issued by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), global warming, which impairs agricultural productivity, is threatening rice harvests.
As for the grimness of this warning, which is based on field studies conducted at the IRRI headquarters in the Philippines over the past dozen years along with weather data, it should become evident from the fact that the grain is currently feeding over two billion people around the world.
Pointing out that exhaustive studies have shown that rice yields declined by 15 percent for every one degree Celsius increase in the mean daily temperature, IRRI attributed the hazard to increased night time temperatures from global warming, blaming it largely on emissions of gases, like carbon dioxide from fossil fuels in cars and factories.
Dilating upon the gravity of the dangerously developing situation, it referred to researchers' speculation that increased temperature at night forces the plant to divert more energy to maintain metabolic functions, instead of producing greater bio-mass and grain yield.
As for the future threat it poses to rice production, it has revealed that temperatures are projected to rise globally by 1.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius in the coming century, that is, three to nine times more than in the past century.
Warming of the Earth's surface as a result of atmospheric pollution by gases, which has been identified as the greenhouse effect, has been described as being undesirably increased, causing climate changes and melting polar icecaps too.
It will thus be noted Earth warming has been causing harm to the natural environment - the air, soil, or water - usually by introducing damaging substances, such as chemicals or waste products.
However, while rice yields were found to decrease by 10 percent for each one degree Celsius increase in minimum night time temperature, the increase in night time temperatures being threefold greater than the increase in daytime temperature, the yields declined by 15 percent for every one degree Celsius increase in mean daily temperature.
Now that IRRI has also pointed out that the latest estimate is twice the previous projection of global warming effects on rice yields, as emerging from theoretical models, there should be little else required to conclude that feared shortfalls in rice production from unchecked global warming can be much more widespread and persistent than thus far anticipated.
Needless to point out, such a devastating phenomenon cannot but insidiously threaten food security and political stability on a widening scale, all the more so in the densely populated rice growing developing countries like Pakistan.
While desperately engaged in multidirectional efforts to revitalise their predominantly agricultural economies on sound lines, they remain intrigued by the inevitability to feed their teeming millions.
Certainly, these findings are important for predicting the effects of global warming on food security, simply because rice happens be the staple food for about one-half of the human population, thereby increasing concern for the threatened nations.
Again, since the study under reference is stated to have been made by a nine-man research team headed by IRRI's crop physiologist, its identification of the next challenge for the rice growers as development of new rice varieties capable of sizeable yields despite any increase in temperatures in rice growing areas, will be seen as being credible enough.
In fact, though a challenge for the world community, it should primarily, beckon the seriously threatened countries, including Pakistan, to heed the warning and to respond to it in a befitting manner.