Should we eat less rice?
6 Minute English
BBC
4.6 ⢠1.3K Ratings
đď¸ 13 March 2025
âąď¸ 6 minutes
đď¸ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Demand for rice is increasing, but is it possible to grow it in a more eco-friendly way?
Find a full transcript, worksheet and interactive quiz for this episode at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/6-minute-english_2025/ep-250313
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | 6 Minute English from BBC LearningEnglish.com |
| 0:07.0 | Hello, this is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Neil. |
| 0:11.9 | And I'm Beth. Neal, what type of foods do you often eat? |
| 0:16.2 | Well, basic things to fill me up, that sort of bread, potatoes. |
| 0:21.8 | Well, food like this, which is regularly eaten by many people, is known as a staple. |
| 0:28.1 | In Britain, bread is a popular staple, but for large parts of the world, there's another |
| 0:33.5 | food which is number one, rice. |
| 0:36.3 | That's right. Over half the world's population eats rice as the staple food, which is number one, rice. That's right. Over half the world's population eats |
| 0:39.1 | rice as the staple food, especially in Asia. But rice is a very thirsty crop, which needs |
| 0:45.6 | lots of water to grow, and this is becoming a problem because of droughts and flooding caused |
| 0:50.9 | by climate change. In this program, we'll be hearing about a pioneering new technique, |
| 0:57.0 | helping farmers to grow rice in the face of a changing climate. |
| 1:01.0 | As usual, we'll be learning some useful new words and phrases. |
| 1:05.0 | And remember, you can find all the vocabulary from this programme on our website, |
| 1:10.0 | BBClearningEnglish.com. |
| 1:12.1 | But first I have a question for you, Beth. |
| 1:14.5 | Just now I mentioned that rice is a very thirsty crop. |
| 1:18.7 | So how much water is needed to grow one kilogram of rice? |
| 1:23.1 | Is it A, 1,000 to 3,000 litres, B, 3,000 to 5,000 litres, or C, 5,000 to 7,000 litres? |
| 1:33.1 | I'm going to say C, 5,000 to 7,000 litres. |
| 1:37.2 | Well, we'll find out if that's right at the end of the programme. |
| 1:40.8 | Dr. Yvonne Pinto is Director-General of the International Rice Research Institute, or I-R-R-I, for short, based in the Philippines. |
... |
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