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Speaker 1: Is it out of left field or a real possibility?

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Speaker 1: The idea of growing rice commercially in this country. Currently

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Speaker 1: commercially we grow, of course none, but we import ninety

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Speaker 1: five million dollars worth, which is eighty five thousand tons

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Speaker 1: are Doctor Jacqueline Roweth, Ed, Junct Professor of Course at

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Speaker 1: Lincoln University, is back with us on the program. Jackeline,

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Speaker 1: good morning, Good morning, Mike. So the suggestion has been made.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever thought about it before? Outside of this

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Speaker 1: particular suggestion, you ever thought they'd go? I wonder if

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Speaker 1: we should grow rice.

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Speaker 2: We look at all sorts of things in the agricultural

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Speaker 2: field like pun sorry there, but looking at what we

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Speaker 2: might be able to grow more efficiently, effectively and therefore

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Speaker 2: profitably than other countries. And it's lovely to see Yuki

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Speaker 2: Fakuda and taught her at Lincoln back in the nineties

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Speaker 2: thinking innovatively like this. What she's done is go for volume.

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Speaker 2: I think we should be looking at value. Rice is

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Speaker 2: a two dollars a kilo crop. Is it sensible to

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Speaker 2: be trying to grow it here? And she's talking about

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Speaker 2: in the future, So she's doing exploratory work. What would

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Speaker 2: it be replacing if we can grow something that is

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Speaker 2: of more high value, we should be sticking with that.

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Speaker 2: And in Nelson it's probably still going to be grapes

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Speaker 2: for a while.

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Speaker 1: Exactly, And that answers the question. Having said that, and

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Speaker 1: would we also want to grow for just purely domestic consumption,

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Speaker 1: which I assume is solving our importing problem. Would we

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Speaker 1: do that? Is that sensible or not?

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Speaker 2: We always do that if it's sensible. And the question is, well,

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Speaker 2: we can't compete with India, China, Indonesia at the moment

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Speaker 2: they have minimum weight, Well, they don't have minimum wages,

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Speaker 2: they don't have maternity even all of those sorts of

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Speaker 2: things or acc and their environmental compliance is not the

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Speaker 2: same as ours. So you might be saying why do

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Speaker 2: we buy rice? Well, at least it gives.

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Speaker 1: Them an income, that's true. All I know about growing

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Speaker 1: rice is you need a tremendous amount of water. That

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Speaker 1: would be immediately an issue here, wouldn't it.

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Speaker 2: Yes, you can grow it without paddy the pogging though

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Speaker 2: water underwater type system, but it is quite a high

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Speaker 2: water user. It also us is quite a bit of

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Speaker 2: night which people forget. So it would we be able

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Speaker 2: to grow without as much water as they use in

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Speaker 2: many places in China, certainly, but yet it is a

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Speaker 2: high use of water. But Mike, remember we use very

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Speaker 2: little of the water that we have available in this country. Yes,

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Speaker 2: only about five percent.

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Speaker 1: That's right. This is what where this came from. Partially

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Speaker 1: is the climate change thing. Is the climate change thing,

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Speaker 1: in your view, consistent enough and dramatic enough to change

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Speaker 1: what's grown. And we're in a fairly dynamic way.

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Speaker 2: We're looking at that all the time as researchers. And

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Speaker 2: it is certainly possible to grow things like limpils or

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Speaker 2: chickpeas on the Canterbury planes, but we can't do it economically.

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Speaker 2: So periodically people trusted out. And remember the Foundation for

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Speaker 2: Arable Research does where it has looked at father beans,

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Speaker 2: for instance, can we shift our production systems? But it hasn't.

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Speaker 2: The climate has not got warm enough for and given

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Speaker 2: us a consistent harvest season to allow us to be

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Speaker 2: able to compete with for instance, Canada for peas in peas,

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Speaker 2: we can't split peas, give peace we can't do again.

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Speaker 2: It comes back to the cost of production, which includes

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Speaker 2: the wages, environmental compliance type problems.

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Speaker 1: Jacquelin always appreciate your time and expertise Jacqueline howth Rowe

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Speaker 1: with Rather Doctor, Adjunct professoral Lincoln University. For more from

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