Rice growing causes methane. Duh.

 We Asians are aware that growing rice causes methane release.

Asians have long been blamed by the global warming crazies because we eat rice.

Flooding rice paddies and plowing weeds etc into the mud to rot and fertilize the crops results in methane, a greenhouse gas. So we rice farmers are under pressure to limit the flooding of the rice paddies.

dirty little secret: this method lowers methane release, but increases Nitrous oxide release, which is another greenhouse gas even worse than Methane.

But now Nature magazine is blaming Africa because they too are busy growing rice.

Africa has been identified as a major driver of the current rise in atmospheric methane, and this has been attributed to emissions from wetlands and livestock. Here we show that rapidly increasing rice cultivation is another important source, and we estimate that it accounts for 7% of the current global rise in methane emissions.

so what is their answer? Stop growing rice and starve you peasants. 

Continued rice expansion to feed a rapidly growing population should be considered in climate change mitigation goals.

This will alert the western green NGOs to stop Africans from doing this.

In contrast, China is helping them to grow rice.

getting them to plant hybrid rice with a higher yield, and helping with loans to update their farming practices.

The article goes into details how they are doing this, including finding which type of rice grows best and making a rice institute there to grow seeds for locals to plant.

 

More than 20 African countries are planting hybrid rice, and China continues to provide agricultural technical support to countries and regions in need, helping countries strengthen agricultural capacity building related to hybrid rice.