CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Global rice production nearly doubled between the 1960s and the 2010s, despite the negative impacts of climate change, according to a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The study found that management decisions — including expanded irrigation and increased nutrient inputs — played a central role in sustaining rice production and offsetting climate-related losses. The results of the study suggest that future food security will depend not only on environmental conditions, but also on how rice production systems are managed and adapted to changing conditions.
The study by climate, meteorology and atmospheric sciences professor Atul Jain and former graduate student Tzu-Shun Lin combined observations and process-based modeling to examine the factors that shaped global rice production over the past half century. The researchers evaluated how environmental change and agricultural management together influenced rice production across regions and over time. The results of the study are published in the journal Scientific Reports.
“Rice sits at the intersection of food security, economic development and environmental change,” Jain said. “Today, most of the world’s rice grows in Asia, with China, India and countries across South and Southeast Asia accounting for the largest share of global production.”
Previous studies have examined how individual factors, such as climate change or CO2, affect rice yields. What makes the current study different is that it explicitly takes a comprehensive approach by accounting for the combined effects of environmental change and key rice management practices, including irrigation, nitrogen fertilizer and manure use, multiple growing seasons and different rice planting methods.
“The decisions made by farmers, industry and policymakers have been instrumental in sustaining rice production and improving food security for billions of people,” Jain said. “Our study shows that the increase in rice production was driven primarily by management decisions — in the form of expanded irrigation, increased nutrient inputs and adoption of farming practices that helped farmers grow more rice — rather than by climate change.”
The study also demonstrates that climate change is the only factor in the analysis that reduced rice production, lowering global production by an estimated 7% between 2006 and 2015, due to warming temperatures, heat stress and water shortages. In contrast, rising atmospheric CO2 was the primary environmental factor, contributing to increased rice production by enhancing photosynthesis and improving water-use efficiency. Together, these findings illustrate the complex and sometimes opposing ways in which environmental changes influence agricultural production.
“Food security and environmental sustainability must be addressed together,” Jain said. “This is critical, as our study shows that climate change is already affecting rice production in some of the world’s most important rice-growing regions. India experienced the largest climate-related rice production losses, followed by Indonesia and China, highlighting the importance of developing management strategies that can sustain rice production while adapting to increasing climate pressures.”
The group’s next step is to use this framework to identify pathways for meeting future rice demand under changing climate conditions while improving the long-term sustainability of agricultural systems.
Jain said that future research will also examine how strategies designed to increase food production affect greenhouse gas emissions, water resources and other environmental outcomes.
“Ultimately, our goal is to identify the pathways that can simultaneously improve food security, strengthen climate resilience and make rice production more sustainable,” he said.
Editor’s note:
To reach Atul Jain, email jain1@illinois.edu. The paper “Management practices and elevated atmospheric CO2 levels helped to sustain a high level of global rice production“ is available online. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-55973-0.
