The World Bank’s Beijing office announced Thursday that it has approved a loan of 255 million US dollars to assist a scheme that will reduce methane emissions and improve irrigation and drainage services in rice production in central China’s Hunan Province.
According to the bank, the program will help to increase climate resilience in rural areas while also lowering greenhouse gas emissions from grain production.
The program will spend five years constructing a sustainable rice production model and creating reproducible and scalable knowledge and experiences for China and other rice-growing countries, with a total investment of $1.24 billion dollars funded by a World Bank loan and Chinese government funding.
The program, according to Mara Warwick, World Bank Country Director for China, Mongolia, and Korea, would deliver innovative solutions to enhance climate mitigation in China’s agriculture sector.
