Rice is grown in flooded ground for weed control. When soil is covered with water it becomes anaerobic and the organic matter in the soil gets digested by anaerobic bacteria, releasing methane. A healthy soil is largely aerobic in nature. Also the anaerobic bacteria solubilize any arsenic in the soil and the plant absorbs it, thus causing the issue of high arsenic levels in rice grain. Dryland rice culture does not do this, and rice is being grown this way, on a few small farms in northeast USA. Even Tom Jefferson experimented with dryland rice culture.

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