Irrigated rice produces 75% of the world’s rice with a yield of 5.3 to 5.4 tons/ha, lowland rice 19% with 2.3 tons/ha, and rainfed upland rice 4% with 1 ton/ha (Rice Almanac 2013), so the more irrigation water available, the more yielding it gets.
However, contrary to popular belief, rice is not an aquatic plant and the main reason it is submerged in water is to control weeds (WWF 2007), therefore our solution Seed Film Cultivation (SFC) is to grow rice outside of the water while weeding with biodegradable films.
SFC is that the Seed-attacher attaches seeds to biodegradable films, and the seeded film is spread over a dry field, covered with soil, and irrigated with rainwater and a watercan to produce more than 6t/ha in rainfed uplands where the previous yield was only 1 t/ha.
SFC will be the most effective ready-to-use rice self-sufficiency solution for underdeveloped countries that import rice despite having a large number of rainfed uplands.