🌱 Memo #5 Rice, Rice, Baby

[4-minute read]

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NatureTech Memos
July 11, 2024

Happy Thursday!

In today’s edition: Sushi, Bibimbap, Biryani, Jambalaya, Nasi Goreng… 🤤
Rice is one of the most versatile, affordable and therefore consumed foods globally, but growing it produces more emissions than the UK & France combined.
We took a look at the start-ups aiming to put sustainable rice back on the menu. 

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🐘 Long Read (6-Min Read)

Top 3 start-ups saving the world of Rice

🌾 The Context: 

  • Rice is one of the most consumed foods worldwide. It accounts for around 20% of the world’s calories and, over 50% of the world’s population relies on rice in their daily diet due to its versatility and affordability according to the UN Food & Agriculture Organisation

⛔ The Problem: 

  • Rice is a big emitter. The global warming potential of greenhouse gas (GHG emissions from rice systems is around four times that of maize or wheat. Covering 11% of the world’s arable land, rice is responsible for ~10% of agricultural emissions and 1.8% of total emissions  . This is comparable to the footprint from global aviation and even entire countries e.g., UK, Germany, France.

  • Emissions are due to how rice is produced. Current methods of rice cultivation stay true to those used for centuries, with farmers burning the rice straw to clear fields, resulting in the significant release of CO2, Methane, Carbon Monoxide,  Nitrogen oxides and Sulfur oxides to the atmosphere. Alternatively, farmers flood fields to encourage swift decay of remaining rice straw, which similarly leads to extensive methane emissions

  • It’s a growing issue and change will be hard. Rice production is projected to increase 10% by 2035. With ~80% of this production coming from small-scale farmers, significant incentive mechanisms are needed to shift these traditional behaviors to more sustainable ones.

🧩 The Solutions:  

  • The use of new rice varieties can help reduce emissions by 24%. Genetically modified rice strains (e.g., SUSIBA2 containing barley DNA) have been found to have fewer methane-emitting microbes on their roots compared to conventional rice strains.

  • Straw removal & recycling techniques can help reduce emissions by and 46%. Although more labor-intensive than the traditional method of burning, removing straw from paddy-systems for use elsewhere (e.g., livestock feed) can help reduce emissions whilst maintaining or even increasing yields.

  • Alternate cultivation techniques including controlled irrigation or alternate wetting & drying (AWD). Using these techniques can help control weeds, reduce emissions by  ~44% and reduce arsenic (a toxic chemical) uptake of rice crops whilst ensuring they have sufficient water to grow for sufficient yield. Similarly, mid-season drainage and direct seeding methods can help reduce methane emissions when compared to traditional processes. 

🚀 The Start-up Landscape 

  • Rize (Singapore)
    Provides a solution that incentivises and rewards farmers to adopt new practices that reduce GHG, increase yields & elevate farmers’ wellbeing.
    Latest Round: Series A; May 2024; $14M
    Investors: Wavemaker Impact; Temasek; Breakthrough Energy; GenZero
    News: Strategic partnership with Temasek for sustainable rice cultivation in Indonesia.

  • CarbonFarm (Paris, FR)
    Provide access to carbon markets for rice farmers & general agribusinesses through end-to-end support including project design, MRV & credit certification/sales.
    Latest Round: Seed; October 2023; $2.6M
    Investors: TechMind; AgFunder; Ponderosa; Climate Capital; Racine2; BPI France.
    News: Collaborating with Cornell to launch ClimateRice Initiative, reducing methane emissions by 50%.

  • MittiLabs (US & India)
    Remote analytics & ground truth MRV to enable farmers and corporate buyers to reduce methane emissions throughout the agricultural supply chain of rice.
    Latest Round: Seed; August 2023; $3M
    Investors: Voyager Ventures; Lightspeed India; Overview
    News: Partnerships with large agriculture industry players such as Syngenta & Ebro Foods S.A.

⛰️ Challenges to overcome:

  • The challenge of disrupting an agricultural process that feeds billions is no small feat. 80% of Rice cultivation comes from small farm-holders and is consumed locally. This means start-ups have a far larger number of farmers to convince to adopt their new process, or technology, than would be the case with other crops.   This creates a mammoth task in mobilizing action at-scale.

  • New methods will not be adopted if they pose any risk to yield. Rice farmers are already feeling the impacts of climate change, with changes in weather patterns and sea-water levels threatening yields. Many of these farmholders’ livelihoods are heavily reliant on their crops and so new methodologies can be a hard sell. With slim margins for error, evidence of and reassurance on the benefits of these new methodologies are necessary if they are to be adopted at all.

  • The question of who pays for this transition is complex. New methods can be labor-intensive and therefore require capital investments to achieve, something these farmers do not typically have at their disposal. Will large local agribusinesses step-up to incentivise this widespread action within their value-chain or will profit-sharing mechanisms through carbon-credit projects offer a more viable financing option ?

💰️ Opportunity:

  • Rice Paddies present a huge opportunity for emissions reduction beyond CO2 with methane. Rice projects are no stranger to the controversy surrounding dubious carbon offset projects. Emissions reduction solutions in rice paddies, however, offer huge potential for reducing another potent GHG, methane. There is an opportunity to instill scientific rigor & assurance to drive the creation of high-quality methane-reduction projects across vast areas of arable land

  • Country-level commitments are incentivising action. Vietnam’s government has committed to cutting up to 25% of its agriculture emissions by 2030 to meet Paris Agreement targets. As 50% of the country's agriculture emissions are from rice, their support for a number of pilot projects (e.g., VnSat leading to 1.58M ton GHG reduction) is a huge step forward in making this market more sustainable. 

🧠 TL;DR Summary:

  • Overall, the rice industry presents a huge opportunity for climate-positive action. In order to achieve a just & equitable transition to a net-zero economy, industries such as this are an important cornerstone where inaction can have devastating consequences.

  • The question of who will pay for these much-needed innovations is up for debate. However, the number of startups emerging to remove friction in this market, paired with government incentives & corporate commitments, is promising for the future of those who rely on this staple food source in their daily lives. 

📖 Still not had your fill? Take a deep-dive here; 

If you’re interested in learning more about our research in this space or want an introduction to any of the start-ups we mentioned reach out to Patrick or Ollie & subscribe to The NatureTech Memos for more content like this!

💬 Snippets for your lift conversations

  • Big Business: The Environment agency of Abu Dhabi has partnered with TotalEnergies to create a programme for the conservation and restoration of Abu Dhabi’s coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, seaweeds and salt marshes. 

  • Big business: Following successful trials which reduced carbon emissions on farms by 15%, ADM and Bayer are expanding their jointly-delivered regenerative agriculture programme.

  • Big business: Hotelier Novotel has forged a partnership with WWF that will see the business support five flagship ocean protection and restoration projects and enhance its corporate sustainability commitments relating to marine ecosystems.

  • Big business: Rosberg Philanthropies, Oxford University’s SDG Impact Lab, and Silverstone Circuit to explore how to curb emissions and biodiversity impact from F1 fans' travel

  • Finance: Data quality is the main challenge for investors looking to set targets on nature, but it is good enough to make a start, according to new guidance launched by the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation (FfB).

  • Finance: Sustainability-linked bonds, performance-based instruments that require issuers to achieve predefined ESG strategies, are increasingly linked to biodiversity according to research from UNDP

  • Finance: A lack of asset-level data is hindering portfolio-wide assessments of biodiversity impact, UBP claimed, as it called for increased disclosure from companies.

  • Policy: The US state of New York has drafted a plan to advance efforts towards protecting 30% of its land and sea by 2030, saying an additional 1.2 million hectares need to be conserved to achieve this target.

  • Policy: UK’s new government must take steps to allow companies in the private sector to engage with the nutrient neutrality scheme. Nutrient neutrality is a concept which ensures that a new land development or site upgrade, does not increase the level of phosphates and nitrates entering vulnerable watercourses and catchment areas.

  • Policy: The Civil Aviation Authority of China (CAAC) launched the country's first technical centre for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Certain SAF’s, that do not compete with food crops or lead to degradation of land, have been shown to have biodiversity benefits. 

  • Early-stage: The EU-backed Interreg Alpine Space initiative has announced a new partnership to map alpine biodiversity and establish a common understanding of its conservation status

  • Research: UK researchers have shown that the location to plant energy crops makes a big difference to biodiversity. A detailed analysis has shown that planting energy crops on existing agricultural land in places like China and Central Europe could minimise harm to biodiversity compared to planting them elsewhere.

  • Research: A new study of coral reefs in Papua New Guinea by researchers from the University of Adelaide has shown ocean acidification simplifies coral structure, making the crucial habitat less appealing to certain fish species.

 🎣 Deals

  • UK-headquartered nature platform provider Natcap announced Wednesday it has secured $10 million in a Series A funding round to scale its technology for supporting companies in assessing nature-related risks and opportunities.

  • eAgronom, the Estonian agriculture-focused climate tech company helping farmers adopt sustainable practices has secured €10 million in its Series A2 equity round. 

  • Kanop, the French start-up focussed on nature-related disclosures and deforestation-free regulations, has raised an undisclosed about from the European Space Agency

  • Two start-ups in our network are currently raising - get in touch for more info

💭 Little Bytes

📊 Stat: Young goats pick up accents from each other, joining humans, bats, and whales as mammals known to adjust their vocal sounds to fit into a new social group.

📺️ Watch: Nature and climate: How can ‘nature tech’ help scale up nature-based solutions?

📆 Events

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📩 Feel free to send us deals, announcements, or anything else at [email protected] . Have a great week ahead! 

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