By: Brian Blum - December 28, 2020

Netafim is one of Israel’s best-known success stories. The company was started in 1965 and became the world leader in drip irrigation systems, especially for arid farmlands.

Now Netafim is now debuting a system for rice, the staple food of more than half the world’s population.

Rice is traditionally grown by flooding paddies with water. Cultivating rice uses up to 40 percent of the world’s freshwater and is responsible for 10% of manmade emissions of the greenhouse gas methane, according to the UN-backed Sustainable Rice Platform.

Netafim’s precision drip system for rice paddies reduces water usage by 70% (from 5,000 cubic meters of water per ton of rice to 1,500 cubic meters) and diminishes methane emissions to almost zero.

New drip irrigation for rice can cut water use by 70%