China's answer to rising sea levels, food insecurity: 'seawater rice'

Chinese scientists have developed salt-tolerant strains of rice and planned to feed 80 mn people

Jinghai district in northern China is hardly a rice-growing paradise. Located along the coast of the Bohai Sea, over half of the region’s land is made of salty, alkaline soil where crops can’t survive. Yet, last autumn, Jinghai produced 100 hectares of rice.

The secret to the bountiful harvest is new salt-tolerant rice strains developed by Chinese scientists in the hope of ensuring food security that’s been threatened by rising sea levels, increasing grain demand and supply chain disruptions.

Known as “seawater rice” because it’s grown in salty soil near the sea, the strains were created by over-expressing a gene from selected