Climate-friendly Indian grain faces uncertain future.

The cultivation of pokkali rice, an ancient grain that helps combat climate change, is in doubt due to a trend towards prawn farming in southern India. Environmental experts warn that this shift is upending a delicate ecosystem, making it difficult for farmers who want to continue with pokkali. Pokkali rice is grown in low lying wetlands that are inundated with rain water, requiring no groundwater for irrigation. It also produces two kinds of crops and maintains natural barriers to rising seas and sequesters carbon in the soil.