Should we eat less rice? ⏲️ 6 Minute English — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English.
2. 0:04I'm Neil. And I'm Beth.
3. 0:05Neil, what type of foods do you often eat?
4. 0:09Well, basic things to fill me up.
5. 0:11That's sort of bread, potatoes.
6. 0:14Well, food like this, which is regularly eaten by many people,
7. 0:18is known as a staple. In Britain,
8. 0:21bread is a popular staple, but for large parts of the world,
9. 0:25there's another food, which is number one –
10. 0:28rice. That's right.
11. 0:29Over half the world's population eats rice
12. 0:32as the staple food, especially in Asia.
13. 0:35But rice is a very thirsty crop which needs lots of water to grow,
14. 0:40and this is becoming a problem
15. 0:41because of droughts and flooding caused by climate change.
16. 0:45In this programme, we'll be hearing about a pioneering new technique helping
17. 0:50farmers to grow rice in the face of a changing climate.
18. 0:54As usual, we'll be learning some useful new words and phrases.
19. 0:58And remember, you can find all the vocabulary from this programme
20. 1:01on our website: bbclearningenglish.com.
21. 1:04But first I have a question for you, Beth.
22. 1:07Just now I mentioned that rice is a very thirsty crop.
23. 1:11So, how much water is needed to grow one kilogram of rice?
24. 1:15Is it a. 1,000 to 3,000 litres,
25. 1:19b. 3,000 to 5,000 litres, or c. 5,000 to 7,000 litres?
26. 1:26I'm going to say c. 5,000 to 7,000 litres.
27. 1:30Well, we'll find out if that's right at the end of the programme.
28. 1:33Dr Yvonne Pinto is director general of the International Rice Research Institute,
29. 1:39or IRRI for short, based in the Philippines.
30. 1:43Here, she explains more about the global popularity of rice
31. 1:46to BBC World Service programme,
32. 1:49The Food Chain.
33. 1:50Between 50 and 56% of the world's population
34. 1:55rely on rice as the principal staple.
35. 1:58Now that's roughly about four billion people.
36. 2:01And it is one of those commodities that is grown really extensively,
37. 2:05particularly in South Asia and Southeast Asia.
38. 2:08But increasingly the appetite for it is growing in continents like Africa.
39. 2:13And of course, there are also Latin American and European rice varieties.
40. 2:18Rice is a commodity, a produce that can be bought and sold.
41. 2:23Like other crops, rice has varieties, different types,
42. 2:27for example brown rice, long grained rice, or basmati.
43. 2:32Much of the research into rice today is focussed
44. 2:35on making new varieties that can adapt to the changing environment
45. 2:39and grow in conditions of either too much or too little water.
46. 2:44Over half the world's population eats rice,
47. 2:46and there's a growing demand in Africa and Europe too.
48. 2:50So clearly there's an appetite, a strong desire, for rice worldwide.
49. 2:55So, is it possible to grow rice in a more eco-friendly way?
50. 3:00Jean-Philippe Laborde, director of rice company
51. 3:03Tilda thinks the answer lies
52. 3:05in a new growing technique called alternate wet drying, or AWD for short.
53. 3:12To grow rice, farmers go through cycles of flooding their fields or paddies,
54. 3:16which then dry out and need to be flooded again. With AWD, measuring
55. 3:22pipes are placed 15cm underground so that farmers can check water levels
56. 3:27at any part of the field.
57. 3:29Normally, rice needs 25 cycles of flooding and drying out to grow,
58. 3:34but using AWD this is reduced to 20 cycles, saving farmers water
59. 3:39and reducing methane emissions.
60. 3:41Here's Jean-Philippe Laborde telling
61. 3:43Ruth Alexander, presenter of BBC World Service's
62. 3:46The Food Chain, how he began his AWD experiment with farmers in India.
63. 3:52We've got, last year, 1,268 farmers on board,
64. 3:56applying this technique to reduce the overall methane emissions.
65. 4:01And how did you persuade those farmers to give it a go?
66. 4:04That was quite challenging because obviously the main challenge is
67. 4:08for farmers the apprehension to lose revenues.
68. 4:11They need to see tangible results at the end of the crop, that they are getting
69. 4:15obviously something better.
70. 4:17Many Indian farmers got on board with Jean-Phillipe's experiment.
71. 4:21If you get on board with something, you agree to a plan of action
72. 4:25and get involved.
73. 4:26In other words, you give it a go.
74. 4:28You try doing something to see if it works.
75. 4:31As it turned out, the new technique produced
76. 4:34tangible results – results which are real and measurable.
77. 4:38Using AWD, the amounts of water and electricity
78. 4:42needed to grow rice decreased, methane gas emissions reduced,
79. 4:47and on top of that, the amount of rice yielded increased.
80. 4:52Right, Neil, isn't it time you revealed the answer to your question?
81. 4:55I asked how many litres of water are needed to grow
82. 4:59just one kilogram of rice?
83. 5:02And the answer was 3,000 to 5,000 litres,
84. 5:05so thirsty, but not as thirsty as you thought.
85. 5:09OK, let's recap the vocabulary we've learned in this programme,
86. 5:12starting with commodity –
87. 5:13a product like rice that can be bought and sold.
88. 5:16Varieties of something are different types of it.
89. 5:20If there's an appetite for something,
90. 5:21there's a strong desire or demand for it.
91. 5:24If you get on board with an idea or a plan,
92. 5:27you agree to do something and get involved with doing it.
93. 5:30To give it a go means to try doing something.
94. 5:34And finally, the adjective tangible means real and measurable.
95. 5:38Once again, our six minutes are up.
96. 5:41If you've enjoyed this programme, why not try practising the new vocabulary
97. 5:45you've learnt with our worksheet.
98. 5:47It's available to download now from our website, bbclearningenglish.com,
99. 5:53and you could also try out the quiz while you're there.
100. 5:56Goodbye for now. Bye!