Paddy Farming: Status and Future Directions

   Ph.D. Jin-Yong Choi

   Former President of KSAE, VPH of ICID

Paddy farming is one of the world’s most important agricultural systems, providing staple food for billions of people while forming a distinctive agroecosystem through interactions among crops, soil, water, and the atmosphere. This presentation reviews the current status, emerging challenges, and future directions of global paddy farming from the perspective of paddy and water environment engineering.

Global harvested rice area increased from approximately 115 million ha in 1961 to 172 million ha in 2024, while paddy rice production increased from about 216 million to 820 million tonnes. During the same period, average yield rose from 1.87 to 4.76 t/ha, demonstrating the major contribution of technological and productivity improvements to global food security. Nevertheless, paddy farming faces increasing challenges from climate change, water scarcity, greenhouse gas emissions, changing consumption patterns, and aging agricultural populations.

Climate change is expected to increase production risks through changes in temperature, precipitation, drought, floods, and water availability. Meanwhile, flooded rice cultivation is an important source of methane emissions.

The importance of paddy farming, however, extends beyond rice production. Paddy landscapes provide multifunctional services including flood mitigation, water storage, groundwater recharge, water purification, biodiversity conservation, wetland functions, cultural heritage, and rural-community support.
Africa also represents an increasingly important frontier, where rapidly growing rice demand, food-security concerns, import dependence, and irrigation potential create significant opportunities for sustainable rice development.

Future paddy farming should therefore evolve toward climate-resilient, low-carbon, multifunctional, and digitally managed systems, integrating advanced water management, methane mitigation, AI and digital technologies, ecosystem services, and expanded international cooperation.