Climate & environment, explained.
Tilling a rice field in Nakhon Sawan province, north of Bangkok, Thailand, 12 November 2026 (Chaiwat Subprasom/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Gene-edited rice offers Southeast Asia a defence against climate shocks, but only if smallholders can access it too.
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Southeast Asia must breed smarter rice to outlast El Niño – and the next oneSoutheast Asia must breed smarter rice to outlast El Niño – and the next one
With Southeast Asia bracing for a severe “Super El Niño (Opens in new window),” the region’s dependence on rice is suddenly looking less like an agricultural issue and more like a strategic vulnerability. El Niño began forming in the early summer and is expected to last into 2027, reaching its peak strength in the final two months of 2026. Governments from Thailand (Opens in new window) to the Philippines (Opens in new window) are already preparing for hotter, drier conditions that could disrupt planting, reduce yields, and push up food prices, while recent research (Opens in new window) warns that compound heat-and-drought events could sharply worsen rice losses across the region.
The timing is particularly consequential: Southeast Asia (Opens in new window) is both a major source of the world’s rice exports and home to hundreds of millions of consumers who depend on the crop as a staple. Yet the region faces a productivity challenge, with average rice yields reaching only around half (Opens in new window) of their estimated potential. Closing this yield gap is becoming urgent as more frequent extreme weather events (Opens in new window) place growing pressure on agricultural systems, threatening both production and the livelihoods that depend on it.
The vulnerability of rice systems was evident during the 2015–16 El Niño event, when regional rice production declined by an estimated 15 million tonnes (Opens in new window). Such disruptions in production can have far-reaching economic, social, and political consequences, from livelihood losses and price volatility to wider food insecurity across both regional and global supply chains.
Maintaining the region’s role as a global food supplier will require not only protecting existing agricultural systems but also transforming them.
This history points to a growing challenge: it is no longer enough to produce more rice; the region must produce rice that can withstand a more volatile climate. Biotechnology could be central to closing this gap. With rice demand projected to increase alongside population growth and changing consumption patterns, securing the region’s rice supply may ultimately be a race to innovate.
With extreme heat posing a long-term threat (Opens in new window) to rice production, biotechnology is emerging as a promising pathway to strengthening the region’s grain security. Conventional agricultural improvements alone may not be sufficient to keep pace with the scale and speed of climatic change. By developing crop varieties that are both more productive and resilient to environmental stresses, biotechnology offers a transformative solution for adapting agricultural systems to these urgent threats.
Efforts are already underway. The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), for example, has developed “climate change-ready (Opens in new window)” rice varieties capable of surviving drought, submergence, and poor soil conditions. Similarly, gene editing technologies such as CRISPR (Opens in new window) (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) are being used to accelerate the development of rice with targeted traits for stress tolerance and disease resistance.
Beyond genetic modification, biotechnology also encompasses innovations such as marker-assisted selection and nuclear techniques for mutation breeding, broadening the tools available to develop climate-resilient varieties. Collaborative initiatives (Opens in new window) across Southeast Asia are applying such technologies to strengthen climate-resilient rice production.
Biotechnology’s potential also extends beyond crop resilience. Biomanufacturing (Opens in new window) is another area of biotechnology in which rice and other grains could serve as platforms for producing high-value proteins, pharmaceuticals, and other biomolecules. Together, these applications illustrate how biotechnology is not just a solution for the distant future, but a practical tool that has already begun shaping agricultural adaptation on the ground.
Despite biotechnology’s importance to future grain security, its adoption faces challenges, particularly uneven access. Smallholder farmers, who make up a large proportion of the agricultural workforce, may lack the financial resources, technical knowledge, or institutional support needed to adopt new technologies. Biotechnology could thus exacerbate existing inequalities, benefiting larger commercial farms while leaving vulnerable communities behind. Regulatory and public acceptance of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and gene-edited crops also remain challenging amid concerns over safety, environmental impact, and corporate control of seeds.
These challenges extend beyond biotechnology itself. Structural weaknesses in Southeast Asia’s food systems can also limit the benefits of technological innovation. Infrastructure gaps, including inadequate irrigation, storage, and distribution networks, continue to drive agricultural and post-harvest losses, from reduced crop yields to spoilage during storage and transport. Addressing these issues therefore requires complementary investments in logistics, rural development, and digital agriculture.
Regional cooperation will matter just as much. ASEAN countries can strengthen grain security through coordinated research, technology sharing, regional stockpiles, and trade strategies that help buffer supply shocks and stabilise food access. Existing ASEAN-CGIAR (Opens in new window) programs demonstrate the potential for regional collaboration on climate resilience, food security, and agricultural innovation.
As environmental pressures intensify and food demand grows, Southeast Asia faces a narrowing window to adapt its agricultural systems, with failure to do so risking declining yields, rising food prices, and heightened social instability. Maintaining the region’s role as a global food supplier will require not only protecting existing agricultural systems but also transforming them. Careful investment in biotechnology, supported by inclusive policies, public trust, and regional cooperation, can strengthen resilience, sustain productivity, and enhance long-term food security.
About the authors
Margaret E. Kosal
Margaret E. Kosal is (full) Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Institute of Technology, and Director of the Geopolitics of Emerging Science & Technologies Initiative.
Ysa Marie Cayabyab
Ysa Marie Cayabyab is Associate Research Fellow for Future Issues and Technology (FIT) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.
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