IMHO, there are alternative arguments like:

Water logged paddy fields can sustain a lot of frogs, fish, crabs and mussels. These are often "the" food for farming families. Perhaps, we could look more into other "concurrent" uses of water in paddy fields. Perhaps, we could improve the land, the water and the life living on water logged paddy fields. After all, paddy fields have been used to store a lot of water without harming the rice production for millenniums.

I wish we could learn a holistic and practical way to manage our paddy fields -- for our farmers now and their children in the future because without them we won't be eating the best rice in the world! ;-).