Dutch farmers are testing rice cultivation as a method to prevent peatland sinking.

What it means

Dutch dairy farmers are trialing rice cultivation on rewetted peatlands as a way to stop the land from sinking. Draining peat bogs for cattle farming causes the organic soil to oxidize and subside while releasing CO₂; growing rice, a wetland crop, allows the peat to stay waterlogged. This is a pilot project, likely run with Wageningen University & Research, testing whether cool-climate rice varieties can make 'paludiculture' economically viable in the Netherlands.

Accuracy & sourcesGrounded

The claim is a straightforward description of an ongoing pilot project, reported by AFP and picked up by reputable outlets like Phys.org, Dawn, and Taipei Times. The underlying primary source appears to be Wageningen Environmental Research, whose own communications (e.g., a Sept 2025 LinkedIn post) confirm the trial's existence and framing, so the reporting sits close to the primary source, though it is secondary.

How new

This is genuinely new coverage from early October 2026 of an ongoing trial, not a re-report of old material.

Go deeper

• AFP (via Google News) — first to publish