Perennial rice improves farmer livelihood and ecosystem security

Abstract To tackle food insecurity faced by an ever-growing population, there is an urgent need to develop new forms of highly productive and ecologically-secure agricultural systems. Crop perennialization provides a novel and promising solution to both food security and environmental challenges. Compared with annual grain production systems, which often undermine basic ecosystem services, perennial crops could maintain important ecosystem functions and reduce agricultural inputs. Here, we report our successful breeding of perennial rice (PR) taking over 20 years. We introduced perennial growth into domesticated Asian rice by interspecific hybridization and subsequently developed several perennial cultivars that have been commercialized recently in China and successfully trialed in multiple countries. The perennial cultivars produce yields comparable to commercialized annual rice (AR) varieties and maintain them for 4-5 consecutive years from a single planting. They exhibit robust regrowth, acceptable grain and milling quality, and are strongly preferred by farmers. We also quantified the social-economic, ecological and soil benefits attributable to perennial rice cultivation. Finally, we estimated the geographical areas potentially suitable for perennial rice cultivation worldwide, based on the correlation between regrowth rate and over-winter temperatures. Our innovation would help maintain food security and ecological integrity, and also inspire research on other perennial grains.