Revolutionizing Rice Cultivation: A Novel Low-Emission Rice Line to Mitigate Agriculture's Environmental CO2 Impact

** 挑战：** 稻米是世界70亿人口中近一半人口的主食，主要产于东南亚（Mohanty_2013）。随着全球人口的增长，到2030年将超过90亿，土地将面临巨大的粮食压力-水稻产量必须增加25%（Fernandez和Orth 2018）。然而，由于气候变化，水稻产量正在下降（Zhao\_et\_al\_2017）。此外，水稻种植占全球甲烷排放量的12%（世界经济论坛2019），这是一种比二氧化碳（国家地理）高30倍的绿色家用气体。今天，全球水稻生产造成的危害相当于1,200个普通规模的燃煤发电站，到2030年，将占温室气体排放总量的6%（We_Forum_2019）。尽管特别是在中国、日本、韩国和菲律宾的国际水稻研究所（IRRI）采取了持续的举措，但现有的方法无法产生足够高的产量，在中国、印度尼西亚、日本和韩国实际上已经达到稳定水平，尽管在印度和越南等一些关键国家呈线性增长，增长速度太慢，无法满足需求（Grassini和Cassman，2013年）。**解决方案：** NIAB和Tropic之间的这个为期24个月的工业研究项目推进了植物产品（水稻）及其生产系统（基因编辑以增加水稻产量）的最新技术，创造了独特的英国技术和产品出口机会，并为净零（减少水稻种植的排放）做出了重大贡献，最初通过温室试验证明，后来通过田间性能确认（TRL 7）。我们已经证明，我们可以将有利的性状基因编辑到各种作物中（例如，抗病香蕉和大米）。我们将利用我们以前的专业知识来建立这种新型生产系统，包括技术工作，利用敲除和敲除基因编辑来修改水稻中与产量相关的感兴趣区域，并选择最好的水稻品系。在这个项目结束时，我们将能够利用我们的专利“GEIGS”技术在几个水稻品种中创造非转基因水稻，然后我们将商业化。影响力：增加水稻产量，有可能大规模减少温室气体排放，同时生产更多的粮食，从而保持土地利用率不变。我们预测，高产水稻可以使雨养水稻的总CO2减少730千克CO2/公顷，灌溉水稻减少1330千克CO2/公顷。如果全球每个人都消费热带地区的大米，这相当于每年节省4.33亿吨二氧化碳。

**Challenge:**Rice is a staple for nearly half of the world's 7 billion population and is mainly produced in south-east Asia (Mohanty\_2013). As the global population rises, to over nine billion by 2030, there will be huge pressure on land for food -- and rice yields must increase by 25% (Fernandez\_and\_Orth\_2018). However, rice yields are decreasing due to climate change (Zhao\_et\_al\_2017). In addition, rice cultivation accounts for 12% of global methane emissions (World\_Economics\_Forum\_2019), which is 30-times more a potent Green House Gas, than CO2 (National\_Geographic). Today, global rice production is doing as much harm as 1,200 average-sized coal power stations, and by 2030, will be responsible for 6% of total GHG emissions (We\_Forum\_2019). Despite sustained initiatives particularly in China, Japan, Korea and at the International Rice Research institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, established approaches are unable to produce high enough yields, and have effectively plateaued in China, Indonesia, Japan and Korea, and although rising linearly in some key countries such as India and Vietnam, the rates of increase are too slow to meet demand (Grassini\_and\_Cassman\_2013).**Solution:** This 24-month industrial research project between NIAB and Tropic advances the state-of-the-art in a plant product (rice) and it's production system (gene editing to increase rice yield), creating a unique UK technology and product export opportunity, and significantly contributes to Net Zero (reducing emissions from rice cultivation), demonstrated through glasshouse trials initially with field performance confirmation latterly (TRL7). We have already demonstrated that we can gene edit favourable traits into a variety of crops (e.g., disease resistant bananas and rice). We will use our previous know-how to build this novel production system, including technical work, utilising Knock-Down and Knock-Out gene editing to modify yield-related regions of interest in rice and select the best rice lines. By the end of this project, we will be in a position then utilise our patented 'GEiGS' technology to create non-GMO rice in several rice varieties, which we will then commercialise. Impact: Increasing rice yield, has the potential to massively cut GHG emissions, whilst producing more grain, and thus keeping the land-mass utilised constant. We have predicted that higher yielding rice could lead to a total CO2 reduction for rain-fed rice of 730 Kg CO2/ha, and for irrigated rice 1330 Kg CO2/ha.**_If everyone globally were to consume Tropic's rice, this could equate to savings of 433 million tonnes of CO2 annually_.**