Day: October 19, 2024

KAMIMOMI, Japan — In the remote village of Kamimomi in Japan’s western Okayama prefecture, a small group of rice farmers began their most recent harvest in sweltering heat, two weeks sooner than usual.

The prefecture is called “the Land of Sunshine” because of its pleasant climate, but farmers working among the paddy fields and ancient rice terraces say that climate change is hurting the harvest of rice, long a cornerstone of Japan’s diet.

“Last year, an exceptional heat wave took the water out of the rice, which became small and thin,” rice farmer Joji Terasaka said. “So I am worried about that this year because it will be just as hot.”

This year Japan experienced its hottest July on record, with temperatures reaching 2.16 Celsius higher than average, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The globe has seen a 1.2 C rise in average temperature since preindustrial times, and scientists agree that warming needs to be capped at 1.5 C to stave off the worst effects of climate change. That includes even more powerful heat, storms and irreversible ice melt.

Last year, Japan recorded a poor rice harvest nationwide because of exceptionally hot weather. Ministry data showed the country’s private-sector rice inventory fell to 1.56 million tons in June, the lowest level since records began in 1999. Last year was the hottest on record globally, though it’s feared that this year may top it.

The drop in harvest in Japan was partly to blame for this year’s widespread summer rice shortage, according to officials. There were empty shelves in supermarkets, and some retailers are still enforcing purchase limits of one rice bag per customer.

“Perhaps people think that an increase of one degree Celsius in average temperature isn’t much. But it’s quite a big change for plants and crops,” says Yuji Masutomi, a researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba, north of Tokyo.

Masutomi said the rising temperatures not only influence the growth cycle and yield of rice, but also hurt the quality of the grain.

When temperatures rise above 27 C, the buildup of starch inside rice grains is reduced. That causes the crop to take on a chalky appearance, and its value is reduced.

At least a fifth of rice farms have reported a drop in quality from rising temperatures, according to a farming ministry report last year.

“Not only is the appearance not good; people say the taste drops too,” Masutomi said.

For farmers in Kamimomi, there’s another problem with working under exceptional heat. The average age of agricultural workers in Japan is nearly 69, among the oldest in the world, and older people are especially vulnerable to heatstroke.

Toshimi Kaiami led a community project in Kamimomi that involved reviving some of the paddy fields abandoned because of the aging population.

“There are no longer any successors,” says Kaiami. “We are heading toward extinction.”

The community project divides labor among Kamimomi’s farmers. But preparations for the harvest coincided with the hottest months of the year — April to September.

“It takes a half year to produce rice. The heat and the work that we have to endure during that time is really tough,” said rice farmer Mitsumasa Sugimoto, 77.

To deal with climate change, the government is promoting the adoption of heat-resistant rice variants, including Sai no Kizuna, which was developed by a research center in Saitama prefecture, near Tokyo.

Research organizations around the world have worked to produce more resilient strains of essential food like rice while introducing more heat and drought resistant grains like sorghum or millet.

“Last year and this year have been extremely hot, but even in those conditions, Sai no Kizuna maintained a certain level of quality,” said Naoto Ohoka, who manages rice breeding at Saitama’s Agricultural Technology Research Center.

“Its other characteristic is that it is very delicious.”

The center cultivates more than a thousand types of rice strains, and through cross-pollination officials assess and select the best performers to develop new varieties.

Sai no Kizuna was developed in 2012 to better withstand heat, a trait that has become more widely recognized recently as Japan sees hotter summers. The strain also stands up well against typhoon wind and certain pests and diseases.

Researchers want to develop more resilient strains against heat as temperatures are projected to continue rising. Masutomi recommends that variants tolerant of temperatures up to 3 degrees Celsius higher should be introduced across Japan by the 2040s.

But it’s a long process. It can take up to 10 years to develop a new variant. Once it’s approved for the market, farmers must then be convinced to switch to the new strain.

The most widely grown variety is Koshihikari, which is less heat resistant. Even so, older farmers have shown a reluctance to switch to other varieties. Farming ministry data show that only around 15% of Japanese paddy fields have adopted heat resistance variants.
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Two years after reaching a historic biodiversity agreement, countries will gather next week to determine whether they are making progress on efforts to save Earth’s plant and animal life.

The agreement signed by 196 countries at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference calls for protecting 30% of land and water by 2030, known as 30 by 30. When the agreement was signed, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas were protected — which hasn’t changed significantly.

At the conference known as COP16, countries next will report on progress made toward the goals, and governments are expected to agree on mechanisms to assure the implementation of them, according to a European Parliament report.

The two-week meeting in Cali, Colombia, will also focus on efforts to raise hundreds of billions of dollars to protect nature by 2030 — with the payment of $20 billion for developing countries due next year. Twenty-three targets will be discussed including cutting food waste and preventing the introduction of invasive species.

Signs of progress hard to find

The nearly 200 countries are supposed to submit national plans ahead of the conference showing actions they are taking to meet the 30 by 30 goals. But as of this week, around 46% of countries have submitted targets and less than 15% submitted plans for reaching them. Australia has yet to submit its targets while India has not submitted a national plan. Brazil, which includes much of the Amazon rainforest, hasn’t submitted targets or a plan.

The United States, which is not party to the biodiversity convention, is not required to submit any plans. But the Biden administration has committed to protecting a third of American land and waters by 2030.

Some countries are expected to use the conference to unveil plans for creating or expanding protected areas and for how they’ll spend biodiversity funding. Canada, for example, has committed to spending $800 million on four Indigenous-led projects.

Conservation groups are concerned that more countries have not yet detailed their biodiversity goals and how to achieve them.

Bernadette Fischler Hooper, head of global advocacy for WWF International, called the commitments so far “disappointing.” WWF, which is tracking the progress, also found some plans lack actions to halt biodiversity loss, funding to support efforts and sufficient buy-in from across government.

“This is really, really getting close,” Hooper said. “There are some countries who can easily afford to update (their plans). There’s no reason why they didn’t do it … and there are countries that didn’t get the support they needed.”

Of the 91 countries that submitted targets, the convention’s secretariat found more than half had targets of protecting and conserving at least 30% of their terrestrial area and about a quarter had targets for 5% to 30%. For marine and coastal areas, more than one-third had a national target of 30% or more, and another third had targets between 5% and 30%.

But Astrid Schomaker, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said the small number of countries submitting plans isn’t surprising since governments first had to come up with targets and then develop action plans.

“These are complex processes that are meant to be a whole of government,” she said of the plans that require coordination and buy-in from ministries, business leaders and community stakeholders, as well as raising money. “That’s not happening overnight.”

Achieving these targets is especially critical to migratory species, more than 40% which a U.N. report found are declining.

“Birds do not recognize boundaries of a protected area and move according to their feeding and roosting needs,” said Jennifer George, who leads the Seoul-based East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership, a nonprofit focused on birds migrating between East Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Funding crunch

Much like the U.N. climate talks, a big topic of debate at the biodiversity conference will be financing.

Poor countries pushed to include language requiring that $200 billion a year be raised by 2030 for biodiversity from a range of sources to fund the target-specific projects. Rich countries committed to providing developing countries $20 billion starting next year and gradually scaling that up to $30 billion by 2030.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported in September that development finance for biodiversity more than doubled from 2015 to 2022. But when it comes to funding for this agreement, the world was still 23% short of the $20 billion goal.

Advocates said money will be critical since much of the biodiversity that needs protecting is in developing countries like those in Africa.

“There has been progress. Is there enough progress? No,” said Susan Lieberman, the vice president of international policy at Wildlife Conservation Society. “Some countries are taking it seriously and other countries are saying, ‘Oh we want to do this, but where’s the money?'”

More than 30 by 30

In addition to top-tier biodiversity targets, the conference will discuss a goal in the agreement to halt human-induced extinction of threatened species and, by 2050, to reduce extinction rates tenfold. The goal also calls for increasing the “abundance of native wild species” to healthy levels.

But conservationists say the goals lack specifics and hope details can be agreed upon at the meeting.

“Many of these other targets need to be nailed down and quantified, like stopping species extinctions,” said Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm. “At the moment, they are terribly vague.”

Countries plan to showcase the role biodiversity plays in achieving climate mitigation goals and in health, especially preventing future pandemics.

The meeting will also consider adoption of a global mechanism for sharing of benefits from digital data from genetic material derived from plants, animals, bacteria and viruses. The materials are often used to developed commercial products like drugs — and the hope is that an agreement will ensure profits are shared equitably. 
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WASHINGTON — China-based DJI sued the U.S. Defense Department on Friday for adding the drone maker to a list of companies allegedly working with Beijing’s military, saying the designation is wrong and has caused the company significant financial harm.

DJI, the world’s largest drone manufacturer that sells more than half of all U.S. commercial drones, asked a U.S. District Judge in Washington to order its removal from the Pentagon list designating it as a “Chinese military company,” saying it “is neither owned nor controlled by the Chinese military.”

Being placed on the list represents a warning to U.S. entities and companies about the national security risks of conducting business with them.

DJI’s lawsuit says because of the Defense Department’s “unlawful and misguided decision” it has “lost business deals, been stigmatized as a national security threat, and been banned from contracting with multiple federal government agencies.”

The company added “U.S. and international customers have terminated existing contracts with DJI and refuse to enter into new ones.”

The Defense Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

DJI said on Friday it filed the lawsuit after the Defense Department did not engage with the company over the designation for more than 16 months, saying it “had no alternative other than to seek relief in federal court.”

Amid strained ties between the world’s two biggest economies, the updated list is one of numerous actions Washington has taken in recent years to highlight and restrict Chinese companies that it says may strengthen Beijing’s military.

Many major Chinese firms are on the list, including aviation company AVIC, memory chip maker YMTC, China Mobile 0941.HK, and energy company CNOOC.

In May, lidar manufacturer Hesai Group ZN80y.F filed a suit challenging the Pentagon’s Chinese military designation for the company. On Wednesday, the Pentagon removed Hesai from the list but said it will immediately relist the China-based firm on national security grounds.

DJI is facing growing pressure in the United States.

Earlier this week DJI told Reuters that Customs and Border Protection is stopping imports of some DJI drones from entering the United States, citing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.

DJI said no forced labor is involved at any stage of its manufacturing.

U.S. lawmakers have repeatedly raised concerns that DJI drones pose data transmission, surveillance and national security risks, something the company rejects.

Last month, the U.S. House voted to bar new drones from DJI from operating in the U.S. The bill awaits U.S. Senate action. The Commerce Department said last month it is seeking comments on whether to impose restrictions on Chinese drones that would effectively ban them in the U.S. — similar to proposed Chinese vehicle restrictions. 
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