Rice straw recycling: A sustainable approach for ensuring environmental quality and economic security

One of the major challenges in Asian countries is the effective management of rice straw. To ensure food security for their ever-growing population, Asian countries grow more rice, leading to increasing rice straw generation. Burning of rice straw, a common practice, is detrimental to both environmental and human health. However, if managed effectively, rice straw has the potential to safeguard the sustainability of agricultural ecosystems and to uplift the economic security of the population depending on rice farming. Judicious management of rice straw involving minimum soil disturbance along with retention of residues alters the soil carbon cycle through reduced carbon emissions and increased levels of total soil organic carbon. Several alternative uses of rice straw, such as production of livestock feed, bioethanol, biochar, biogas, electricity, mushroom, and paper, can add prosperity to rice farmers’ life by fetching extra income. It is evident that efficient management of rice straw is of enormous economic value. Therefore, it is essential to create awareness among the different rice stakeholders of these alternative economic avenues associated with rice straw. This review is an attempt to provide effective options for sustainable rice straw management and rice straw value chains for harnessing its economic potential. It further identifies gaps in our understanding of the effects of rice straw on ecological sustainability, particularly concerning the multifaceted connections between the diverse mechanisms of rice agro-ecosystems, which may greatly influence food security in the 21st century.