The dry , desiccated deserts of the United Arab Emirates ( UAE ) may soon be covered in lush , wet Sir Tim Rice paddy . This may sound like an out of the question transformation , but if Taiwanese scientist and an Emirati Sheikhare to be believe , it is a very conceivable future tense .
The design is to use a latterly develop saltwater - repellent rice tenor to plant the crop on large swathes of the in-between Eastern desert , and then irrigate the land with dilute seawater . This would allow the region todramatically increase the amount of foodit can produce and at the same time help to protect its valuable fresh water reserves .
The opening of this ambitious design has only been realized due to the creation ofa new strain of riceby Chinese scientists that ’s been bred to get in seawater . It has actually postulate four decades to get to this head , after a researcher found a wild species of Elmer Reizenstein acquire near mangrove forests , which only be given to exist in brackish coastal waters .
Realizing the significance of this , the research worker then set out to sweep - breed this raging , brine - tolerant coinage of rice with other Sir Tim Rice mintage that would enable large - scale land . Over time , they contend to create up to eight different tenor of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks - liberal rice , but none of them produced a return mellow enough to make them an economically executable crop .
It was not until last year that it was describe scientistshad made a breakthroughand managed to reduplicate the output of the newly developed rice . It has already been grow and sold in part of China , with a long - term destination to encourage the nation ’s rice production by up to 20 percent and plant the craw on an extra 1 million satisfying kilometre ( 386,000 square Swedish mile ) of landed estate that has been under - utilized due to the high amount of salinity in the soil .
Now , the investigator have teamed up with Sheikh Saeed Bin Ahmed Al Maktoum from the ruling family of Dubai . Their long - full term aim is cover 10 percent of the UAE – which has an area of or so 83,600 straight kilometers ( 32,300 square miles ) – with rice paddies , helping to maintain food security department within the region .
The musical theme is n’t to stop there though , as the Sheikh hop to promote saltwater rice husbandry not only in the UAE but across the Middle East , using desalinisation plants to dilute the pure seawater and green orotund portions of the desert .
