The evolution of lowland rice-based production systems in Asia: Historic trends, determinants of change, future perspective

Abstract

Abstract Rice is the most important food crop of the world. This has been the case historically and rice production is becoming increasingly relevant with demographic growth and shifting consumer preferences in parts of the world. Rice is being produced in highly diverse production systems with constantly evolving agronomic practices. These have developed from traditional subsistence-oriented rainfed to intensive market-oriented irrigated systems. Assessing future production trends and associated land use and management practices requires an understanding of the (historic) evolution of rice-based systems, including productivity trends, changes in system configurations, and pathways of change. We argue that rice systems' evolution during the past 50 years reflects a process of adaptation to a changing availability of production resources, evolving conditions of resource equilibria (synchrony or mismatch of production factor supply and demand), and the adoption of technological innovations. While having occurred country-specifically at different speed and to different extents, aggregated general trends seem to be fairly homogenous throughout most of Asia, converging in the emergence of high-input and highly mechanized systems. However, accelerating global-scale change processes, national- and regional-scale developments, but also changes in household-scale attributes and farmers' expectations currently entail system shifts toward a “new diversification” at farm-level, with highly site-specific agronomic practices and land use patterns. Manifestations of observed recent and expected future trends for rice production indicate a risk of severe shortages in rice supply. The embeddedness of change trends in land use and resilience theories are presented and implications and suggested situational-adapted research needs are discussed.