[climatecalling]

[Source]

[sereniv]

why is rice that high? is it because of the water it needs? or like modern harvesting practices?

[vegan-and-sara]

Yeah, it’s mostly because the flooding of rice paddies depletes soil oxygen and creates conditions favored by microbes that emit a lot of methane (which also occurs in natural wetlands), and the abundant use of fertilizer also leads to the release of nitrogen dioxide. There are ways to grow rice with less flooding but as it stands, the most common method is flooded paddies.