‘Thrilling’: Dutch cattle farmers switch to rice as solution to warmer climate and sinking peatlands

Dutch cattle farming dries out peatland and releases CO2. Is switching to Japanese rice-growing a solution?

The warming climate is allowing Dutch farmers to grow a grain never before harvested in the Netherlands: rice.

For centuries, cows were the country's agricultural staple. But now farmers are experimenting with produce previously unthinkable in such a wet, temperate country.

And researchers behind the scheme hope rice cultivation could help address one of the country's most pressing environmental challenges: peat soils that are sinking as they dry out, pushing parts of the low-lying Netherlands ever lower.

"It's extraordinary," says Philippe Terheggen, chairman of the Land van Ons association that has provided the fields for the rice harvest.

"We would never have thought maybe 20 years ago that we would be able to grow rice in the Netherlands," says the 68-year-old.

"But it's also scary because it tells you what is possible... now the climate has changed," he says.

For now, the project is a pilot scheme, consisting of just 0.6 hectares, with organisers hoping to produce around three tonnes of short-grain rice suitable for sushi or risotto.

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