Saad might not fully grasp why the changes are occurring, but the new generation of farmers in Malaysia are already experiencing what rising temperatures does to their paddy fields. Shafrizal bin Abdulhamid, Saad's son, said that while this year's rain came surprisingly early, the stresses over climate change are mounting, threatening their crop and their livelihoods.

When Abdulhamid bin Saad, 68, reminisced over the 50 years he's worked the rice paddies, he had no problem remembering what farming was like before using the new technologies available today. But Saad could not explain why the weather feels warmer these days, or why rainfall seems to occur less frequently. "I'm just a farmer," he told me.

These shifts in weather patterns are spurring what once had seemed unimaginable: A reconsideration of rice as the central food in Malaysia's diet. While domestic consumption is about 2.8 million tons this year, the average local rice yield was 30 to 50 percent lower than its potential, according to Malaysian research . Local researchers are now looking towards more climate-adaptive foods, imagining a way to move forward with climate change in mind.

Abdulhamid's family eats rice three times a day. When I visited in March, they gathered at lunch to enjoy a meal of chicken legs, yams, and white rice under a sheltered patio that overlooks acres of their paddy field. Beyond their field are other paddy fields as far as the eye can see. The patchwork of crops stretches to Alor Setar, the capital of Kedah, only minutes away by motorcycle, a common form of transportation in the state.

"It's difficult to prepare for harvest when you cannot rely on rainwater, and you don't know its schedule," Abdulhamid said.

Saad's paddy fields are conveniently located next to the largest irrigation channel in Malaysia, Wan Mat Saman, allowing him access to fresh water. Many farmers in the area, though, are not so fortunate. According to the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), approximately 35 percent of Malaysian rice is solely grown with rainwater, leaving farmers even more vulnerable to changing weather patterns.

And it's poised to become worse. The world is expected to warm by an additional three degrees Celsius by 2050 . While a warmer climate may affect rain and irrigation, other changes are not as apparent. As temperature rises and carbon dioxide levels are elevated, the nutritional content in crops begins to decrease due to the changes. This means less food, and less profit for farmers.

He attributed the changes in their farm to the changes they see and feel in the environment: less rain and a warmer planet means less yield. Abdulhamid questioned if they will ever see the large yields they once had on their farms.

Less than half a mile west of their farm, the sea rolled along the shore. Seawater intrusion has become a serious concern for parts of Kedah, which borders the sea. Like many regions around the world, seawater is g radually rising on the coast due to climate change. The state built an elementary levy to prevent salt water from approaching farms years ago, but Abdulhamid recalled the water reaching past the levy just once, and is concerned it could happen again.

When I flew over Malaysia's northern states, I saw hundreds of rice fields, more proof that it is a staple in the local diet. But it's also a crop that doesn't have a significant amount of nutritional value compared to other local food sources. Malaysia currently produces 60 percent of the rice that it consumes. The other 40 percent is imported from neighboring countries, mainly Thailand.

When the 2008 world food crisis increased the price of rice by 117 to 149 percent, Malaysia knew it needed to be more self-sufficient. Government officials set a goal to harvest all of its own rice by 2020, a feat that some argue is counter-intuitive given the environmental changes. Rainfall has significantly decreased following the El Niño phenomenon that swept the country in 2016, causing drought and dry weather that affected crops. Many call the government's plan into question.

Not far from Malaysia's governing offices in Kuala Lumpur, on Selangor's University of Nottingham's Malaysia campus, sit three state-of-the art domes that house crops ranging from moringa trees to bananas. Crops for the Future, an independent international organization, was specifically created to research underutilized crops for food.

Its CEO, Professor Sayed Azam-Ali, said he hopes that their research will provide an opportunity for forgotten crops to diversify the global market, and incentivize farmers to plant a wider variety of crops. "We imagine a meal without rice is not a meal," Azam-Ali told me. "But that's a recent addiction. It's not something we have always grown up on."