Rice Today Volume 1 number 2

www.irri.org

International Rice Research Institute April 2003, Vol. 2 No. 1

Beijing puts rice on thetable: 1,000 attend firstInternational Rice Congress

Beijing puts rice on thetable: 1,000 attend firstInternational Rice Congress

Organized free for all:Rice Knowledge Bankmaterials are online

Organized free for all:Rice Knowledge Bankmaterials are online

Biodiversity adds value:interplanting dressesChinese fields in pinstripes

Biodiversity adds value:interplanting dressesChinese fields in pinstripes

LOOKING UPIN LAOSLOOKING UPIN LAOSISSN 1655-5422ISSN 1655-5422

2004 declared

International

Year of Rice

2004 declared

International

Year of Rice

Growing one kilogram of rice with traditional irrigationconsumes enough freshwater to fill 25 oil drums.

Using less water, farmers could save on irrigation, boost their earnings,and leave more water for homes, businesses and nature conservation.

Rice scientists are exploring how.

Farming that feeds familiesand protects the environment

5,000liters2003 is International

Year of Freshwater

www.irri.org

Rice Science for a Better W rld

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INVESTING IN PEOPLEThe International Fund for AgriculturalDevelopment focuses on the neediest

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NEW BOOKSIRRI adds seven new titlesto its inventory ofpublications on rice

EVENTSConferences,meetings andworkshops

RICE FACTSFight povertywhere it lives

31 GRAIN OF TRUTHBiotech won’t soon replace“conventional” breeding

LOOKING UPIN LAOSNow able to feed its people withimproved harvests fromlowland rice fields, Laos isfocusing attention on makingupland agriculture moreproductive and sustainable

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RICE IN THE NEWSRice genes go public as International RiceGenome Sequencing Project completes draftIRRI and Japan’s National Institute ofAgrobiological Sciences open new chapterin gene discoveryAs rice genebank clocks a quarter century,a new funding effort takes the long view

SPECIAL SECTION:INTERNATIONAL RICECONGRESS

Beijing puts rice on the table, as firstInternational Rice Congress draws

more than 1,000 delegatesAsian ministers at internationalroundtable call rice essential tostability and prosperity

MANILA MAKES CGIARHISTORYConsultative Group on InternationalAgricultural Research holds annualgeneral meeting in Philippines

ORGANIZEDFREE FOR ALLThe new Rice KnowledgeBank lays the benefitsof more than four decadesof research at yourfingertips

BIODIVERSITYADDS VALUEThe practice of interplantinghigh-value but disease-susceptible traditional ricevarieties with disease-resistant hybrids is dressingthe rice lands of southwestChina in pinstripes

PEOPLEEmile Frison is director general designateof the International Plant GeneticResources InstituteM.S. Swaminathan, former director generalof IRRI, heads Pugwash Movement

Cover photo Seepana Appa Rao

Editor Peter FredenburgArt director Juan Lazaro IVContributing editors Duncan Macintosh, Gene Hettel, Bill HardyDesigner and production supervisor George ReyesPhoto editor Ariel JavellanaPrinter Primex Printers, Inc.

results of agricultural research to rural communities, farmers and families in Africa, LatinAmerica and Asia.

Responsibility for this publication rests with IRRI. Designations used in this publicationshould not be construed as expressing IRRI policy or opinion on the legal status of anycountry, territory, city or area, or its authorities, or the delimitation of its frontiers orboundaries.

Rice Today welcomes comments and suggestions from readers. Potential contributorsare encouraged to query first, rather than submit unsolicited materials. Rice Todayassumes no responsibility for loss or damage to unsolicited submissions, which shouldbe accompanied by sufficient return postage.

Copyright International Rice Research Institute 2003

International Rice Research InstituteDAPO Box 7777, Metro Manila, PhilippinesWeb (IRRI): www.irri.org; Web (Library): http://ricelib.irri.cgiar.org;Web (Riceweb): www.riceweb.org; Web (Rice Knowledge Bank):www.knowledgebank.irri.org

Rice Today editorialtelephone (63-2) 845-0563 or (63-2) 844-3351 to 53, ext 2401;fax: (63-2) 891-1292 or (63-2) 845-0606; email: [email protected]

Rice Today is published by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the world’sleading international rice research and training center. Based in the Philippines and withoffices in 11 other countries, IRRI is an autonomous, nonprofit institution focused onimproving the well-being of present and future generations of rice farmers and consumers,particularly those with low incomes, while preserving natural resources. IRRI is one of16 Future Harvest centers funded by the Consultative Group on International AgriculturalResearch (CGIAR), an association of public and private donor agencies.

For more information, visit the websites of the CGIAR (www.cgiar.org) or FutureHarvest (www.futureharvest.org). Future Harvest is a nonprofit organization that buildsawareness and supports food and environmental research for a world with less poverty,a healthier human family, well-nourished children and a better environment. FutureHarvest supports research, promotes partnerships and sponsors projects that bring the

NEWS2004 declared International Year of RiceInsect ecologist wins Charles A. BlackAward as his project team earnsVietnamese honorUSAID-IRRI conference studies agricultureand food security in Asia and the Near EastIRRI support team wins CGIAR Excellencein Science Award

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INVESTING IN PEOPLE

The International Fund forAgricultural Development (IFAD)has added another chapter to its

two-decade record of cooperation with IRRIto fulfill its mission of “enabling the ruralpoor to overcome their poverty.” LastDecember, the specialized agency of theUnited Nations approved US$1.5 million for“Accelerating technology adoption toimprove rural livelihoods in the rainfedEastern Gangetic Plains,” or nearly half ofthe three-year project’s total budget of $3.5million.

IFAD began supporting IRRI researchin the mid-1980s with a focus on improvingfarmers’ ability to achieve reliable riceharvests in agriculturally less-favored areasaffected by drought, problem soils, cropdisease, insect pests and weeds. In 2001,IFAD upgraded its involvement with IRRI’sparent organization, the Consultative Groupon International Agricultural Research,from member status to cosponsor.

Established in Rome in 1977, IFAD is akey outcome of the 1974 World FoodConference in response to the food crises ofthe early 1970s, mostly in the Saheliancountries of Africa. The conference resolvedthat “an International Fund forAgricultural

Development should be establishedimmediately to finance agriculturaldevelopment projects primarily for foodproduction in the developing countries.”One insight to emerge from the conferencewas that food insecurity and famine werecaused not so much by failures in globalfood production as by structural problemsarising from poverty and, in particular, theconcentration of the developing world’spoor populations in rural areas.

Specific mandateIFAD has a specific mandate to mobilizeresources on concessional terms to alleviaterural poverty and hunger in developingcountries. This means fostering socialdevelopment, gender equity, incomegeneration, improved nutrition,environmental sustainability and goodgovernance, thereby enabling the rural poorto overcome poverty on their own terms.Concretely, the strategy translates intodeveloping and strengthening theorganizations of the poor to confront theissues they define as critical; increasingaccess to knowledge so that poor people cangrasp opportunities and overcome obstacles;expanding the influence that the poor exertover public policy and institutions; andenhancing their bargaining power in themarketplace.

All of IFAD’s strategic choices – inregional, country and thematic strategies;loan and grant activities; involvement inpoverty reduction strategy papers; policydialogue; and the selection of developmentpartners – reflect these principles. IFAD’starget groups are the poorest of the poor,including small farmers, the rural landless,nomadic pastoralists, coastal fisherfolk,indigenous people and, across all groups,poor rural women.

Since its establishment, IFADhas financed 628 projects in 115

countries and independentterritories, to which it hascommitted $7.7 billion in loans

and $35.4 million in grants (including threeprojects fully financed by grants in Rwanda,the West Bank and Gaza). Governments andother financing sources in the recipientcountries – including project beneficiaries –have contributed $7.9 billion. External co-financiers have provided $6.6 billion in co-financing, of which bilateral donorscontributed $1.1 billion, multilateral donors$5.2 billion, and various international andNorthern NGOs $40.2 million. Sources ofco-financing for the remaining $260 millionremain to be confirmed. These projects haveaimed to assist 49 million rural poorhouseholds, or approximately 263 millionpeople.

The fund’s current annual commitmentof about $450 million derives frommembers’ contributions (46%), reflows frompast loans (49%) and investment income(5%).

IFAD’s Governing Council,representing all 162 member states, electsthe fund’s chief executive for a four-yearterm, which is renewable for a second term.The current president, Lennart Båge ofSweden, was elected in February 2001. Thepresident also serves as chairperson of theExecutive Board, whose 18 members and 18alternate members oversee the fund’soperations, particularly the approval ofloans and grants.

Participatory programsIFAD recognizes that poverty in the Asia-Pacific region is especially persistent inagriculturally less-favored areas, many ofwhose indigenous people suffer exploitationand human rights violations. Within adevelopment strategy that emphasizesdecentralized, participatory programspromoting regenerative agriculture andsecurity of land tenure for farmers, IFADaims to enhance the capability of indigenouspeople to tackle political and economicmarginalization, reward them forenvironmental services, and generate socialpeace and security through development. Aswomen are especially prone to poverty,IFAD strives to help them enhance theircapability by tackling discrimination,ensuring equal access to resources andpromoting women’s representation invillage institutions.

Focusing on the neediestby Rodney Cooke

Dr. Cooke is director ofthe Technical AdvisoryDivision of IFAD.

Rice Today April 2003

IFAD

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5Rice Today April 2003

NEWS

The Council for Agricultural Science andTechnology (CAST), an international

consortium of 37 scientific and professionalsocieties based in Washington, D.C., inJanuary named IRRI insect ecologist K.L.Heong the recipient of the 2003 Charles A.Black Award. CAST annually honors anagricultural, environmental or food scientist’soutstanding contribution to the advancementof science in the public-policy arena.

Dr. Heong and three of his partners ina project that encourages farmers to reducetheir use of insecticides had earlier receivedthe Golden Rice Award from Nguyen VanDang, Vietnamese vice minister ofagriculture. Dr. Heong’s co-recipients inCantho City on 6 December were NguyenHuu Huan, vice director general ofVietnam’s Plant Protection Department; VoMai, former vice director general of thedepartment; and Monina M. Escalada, aprofessor in the Philippines’ Visayas StateCollege of Agriculture, now seconded toIRRI. The project team also won theprestigious 2002 St. Andrews Prize forEnvironment (see Rice Today Vol. 1, No. 2,page 5).

Primary consideration for the Charles A.Black Award goes to scientists who are activelyengaged in research and who have demon-strated excellence in communicating theimportance of their scientific achievements topolicymakers, newsmedia and the public.Previous recipients ofthe award includeCalvin Qualset (2002),chairman of the prog-ram committee ofthe IRRI Board ofTrustees, and PerPinstrup-Anderson(1998), former direc-tor general of theInternational FoodPolicy ResearchInstitute. Dr. Heong was scheduled to receivethe award during the CAST banquet on 20March in Arlington, Virginia, USA.

Dr. Heong’s research areas includeinsect ecology, pesticide toxicology,biological control, the sociology of farmerdecision-making and communication. Afterjoining IRRI in 1988, he developed, incollaboration with national scientists in Asia,participatory communication strategies touse mass media to motivate farmers to stopspraying insecticides early in the croppingcycle. The Vietnamese government honoredhim with the Medal for Agricultural

United Nations declares 2004International Year of Rice

A cting on a proposalfrom the Philippine

government, theUnited NationsGeneral Assemblyvoted in December todeclare 2004 theInternational Year of Rice (IYR). In itsannouncement, the UN noted that riceis the staple food of more than half of theworld’s population. It also affirmed theneed to heighten internationalawareness of the role rice can play inalleviating poverty and malnutrition andensuring food security.

The UN Food and AgricultureOrganization and its International RiceCommission have been invited tofacilitate the implementation of the IYRin collaboration with the governments ofthe world’s rice-producing nations, theUnited Nations Development Pro-gramme, the Consultative Group onInternational Agricultural Research (ofwhich IRRI is a member), other organ-izations of the UN system, and NGOs.

As Rice Today goes to press, nodefinite plans yet exist, but most rice-producing nations will likely organizespecial events and activities. IRRI hasconfirmed that, to mark the IYR, it willorganize its next International RiceResearch Conference in the second halfof 2004, probably in Vietnam.

“The decision by the UN to declare2004 the International Year of Rice issignificant not only for the world’s rice-producing nations but also for all theestimated 2.6 billion people who consumerice each day,” said IRRI Director GeneralRonald Cantrell. “IRRI is looking forwardto actively participating in manyimportant IYR events.”

Development in 1996, and he was the co-recipient of the Partnering Excellence Medal2002 from Australia (see below).

Nearly a decade ago, the IRRI-led teamfound that a large proportion of farmers’insecticide spraying is unnecessary,especially early in the cropping cycle. Mostof it targets the rice leaffolder, whose earlyinfestations have no effect on yields. Theteam distilled the complex scientific detailsinto a simple rule of thumb – “No earlyinsecticide spray” – and used popularmedia, including short radio dramas,leaflets and posters, to reach farmers.

Following the media campaign in theMekong Delta, average insecticide use fellin the test area by 53%, from 3.4 to 1.6sprays per season, and has remained low foreight years. The team has run a similarcampaign in Thailand and will soon launchanother, partly supported by the St.Andrews Prize money, in Quang NinhProvince in the Red River Delta.

IRRI insect ecologist wins Charles A. Black Awardas his collaborative team earns Vietnamese honor

IRRI shares Australian Partnering Excellence Medal 2002management of rodent pests in Australia andAsia, through building quality partnerships.Dr. Singleton received it in Parliament Housein Canberra on 10 December.

The joint research has produced achemical-free rodent management system,called the community trap barrier system,that can reduce rat damage by 20%. It isbeing adopted in several provinces in theMekong and Red River deltas of Vietnam,in a project funded by the Australian Agency

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Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific andIndustrial Research Organization

(CSIRO), represented by Grant Singleton,and the Rodent Ecology Work Group at IRRI,led by K.L. Heong of IRRI and John Coplandof the Australian Centre for InternationalAgricultural Research (ACIAR), are co-recipients of Australia’s PartneringExcellence Medal 2002. The medalrecognizes excellence in providinginternational leadership, scientific expertiseand training in the ecologically based

Dr. Heong and a Vietnamese “No early insecticide spray” poster.

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NEWS

Support team wins Excellence in Science Award

An IRRI research support team won the world’s most prestigiousaward for a scientific support team in publicly funded

agricultural research. The project – which has operated mainly inChina but is now expanding into other countries – is calledExploiting Biodiversity for Sustainable Pest Management (see page26). It allows farmers to boost their income while controlling a majorrice disease with fewer applications of polluting chemicals.

The team received the award during the annual general meetingin Manila last October of the Consultative Group on InternationalAgricultural Research (CGIAR), which each year presents Excellence

in Science Awards. This makes two years in a row that a Filipinosupport team at IRRI has won the CGIAR Outstanding ScientificSupport Team Award, which in 2001 went to the institute’s hybridrice breeding team. It is also the second year running that the CGIARhas cited the biodiversity project, whose paper “Genetic diversityand disease control in rice” in the journal Nature won the 2001CGIAR Outstanding Scientific Article Award.

The photo shows (from left) project leader Tom Mew andsupport team members Alice Bordeos, Mel Revilla, Vivay Salazar,Nancy Castilla, Santy Culala, Abe Ona, Manny Lantin, MayetteBaraoidan, Florencio Balenson, Max Banasihan, Flavio Maghirangand Nollie Vera Cruz.

Working CUREThirty scientists from South and SoutheastAsia attended the Consortium forUnfavorable Rice Environments (CURE)workshop on 24-25 January at the NationalAgricultural Science Center in Pusa, NewDelhi. Organized by R.K. Singh, IRRI liaisonscientist for India, the workshop aimed toidentify technologies to help “cure”unfavorable environments, selectappropriate research sites and collaboratinginstitutions, and prioritize research areas.Unfavorable environments are rainfed areasthat suffer water scarcity or flooding. Mostof CURE’s six working groups, which arebased on the major rainfed subecosystems,have held planning meetings. DeputyDirector General for Research Ren Wang leda group of IRRI scientists attending theOctober meeting of the working group onshifting and rotational systems in LuangPrabang, Laos.

Moving in AfricaAfter months of civil war in its home baseof Côte d’Ivoire, the CGIAR’s West AfricaRice Development Association (WARDA) iscontinuing its management operations inthat country but temporarily relocating itsscientists to Bamako, Mali, where theInternational Crops Research Institute forthe Semi-Arid Tropics, a CGIAR sistercenter, operates a research station.WARDA, which recently took the additional

name of Africa Rice Center, reports havingrecovered from the genebank on theWARDA campus more than 6,000 rice seedsamples, representing over 80% of the totalcollection.

Drought economics workshopA workshop in Bangkok on 5-6 Novemberstudied the economic cost of drought andfarmers’ coping mechanisms. The project,organized by IRRI’s Social Sciences Divisionand supported by a special grant from theRockefeller Foundation, employs cross-country comparative analysis of three majorrice-producing countries in Asia: China,India and Thailand.

Philippine honor for IRRIThe Pilipinas Shell Foundation lastNovember recognized IRRI’s contributionto the empowerment of disadvantagedfarmers. The foundation cited the institute’sdevelopment of salt-tolerant and tungro-resistant rice lines and the contribution theyhave made to the livelihood of farmers whostruggle against these productionconstraints.

Research publication changesInternational Rice Research Notes (IRRN),IRRI’s biannual research journal, installedTess Rola as its new managing editor inJanuary, replacing Katherine Lopez.Shaobing Peng and Bas Bouman stepped

down from the editorial board after morethan three years and were replaced by AbdelIsmail and Renee Lafitte. J.K. Ladhacontinues as IRRN editor-in-chief.

First field test of GM riceThe first field evaluation by the PhilippineRice Research Institute (PhilRice) and IRRIof transgenic rice variety IR72 with the Xa21gene has shown good agronomicperformance at the PhilRice station inMuñoz. IRRI developed the materials in1998-99 and found that, under screenhouseconditions, they showed excellentprotection against all races of bacterialblight in Asia.

Platform for saving waterParticipants in the international workshopWater-Wise Rice Production at IRRI inApril 2002 have created the InternationalPlatform for Saving Water in Rice(IPSWAR) to coordinate the efforts ofagricultural researchers who are developingwater-saving technologies for rice pro-duction. For more information, visit www.irri.org/irrc/water/ipswar.asp or emailB.A.M. Bouman at [email protected].

New head for flood-prone riceMahabub Hossain is IRRI’s newcoordinator for improving flood-prone riceproduction in South Asia. This project,funded by the United Nations’ International

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Fund for Agricultural Development,involves Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka,Vietnam and Thailand.

Conference on wild riceIRRI Genetic Resources Center HeadRuaraidh Sackville Hamilton delivered thekeynote address last October at the first-ever International Conference on Wild Rice,hosted by the Green Energy Mission inKathmandu, Nepal. Dr. Sackville Hamiltonaccepted on IRRI’s behalf a felicitation fromBadri Prasad Mandal, deputy primeminister of Nepal and the minister foragriculture and cooperatives. Discussionsexplored the possibility of establishing an

for International Development. Theinnovative system uses a plastic fence placedaround the rice crop, which serves as bait,and cage traps placed at openings in theenclosure. Farmers who use this systemneed not handle dangerous rat poison orelectricity. Another advantage is that ratsare caught alive and can be cooked byfarmers or sold commercially.

international network for wild ricecoordinated by IRRI.

New variety in VietnamThe Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture andRural Development approved in August ricevariety AS996, developed in part throughIRRI research, for release as a nationalvariety adapted to the acid sulfate soils thataffect up to 100,000 ha of the Mekong Deltaregion and elsewhere.

Analytic training in ThailandA two-week training course on multi-agentsystems and geographic informationsystems for integrated watershed

USAID and IRRI cosponsorfood security conference

management, held in October 2002 at theMultiple Cropping Center of Chiang MaiUniversity, attracted 24 participants fromThailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia,Bhutan, Bangladesh, Australia, Japan,France and Germany.

IRRI-Japan office closesThe end of January saw the retirement ofHiroyuki Hibino as IRRI liaison scientist inJapan and the closure of the IRRI-Japanoffice in Tsukuba. For now, IRRI’s chiefcontacts in Japan are the two Japanesemembers of its Board of Trustees, KeijiroOtsuka and Shigemi Akita. The refocusingof the IRRI-Japan relationship emphasizesclose research collaboration (see page 9),mobilization of new resource opportunitiesand heightened public awareness.

Rice technology transferThe first-ever training workshop on ricetechnology-transfer systems in Asia brought19 participants from 10 Asian countries tothe South Korean Rural DevelopmentAdministration for two weeks in Septemberand October 2002. Participants studiedworldwide trends in the rice industry,models of rice technology-transfer systems,communication strategies and projectmanagement. They also observed advancedrice-farming practices during visitsto demonstration villages and progressiverice farmers.

To make women more effective agents of change in agriculture, the IRRI Training Center conducted in November2002 the first Leadership Course for Asian Women in Agricultural Research and Development. Attending were 20participants from Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines and Thailand.

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Members of the rodent management team in Australia(left to right): Dave Spratt, Lyn Hinds, Charles Krebs,Grant Singleton (holding plaque), Peter Brown, JohnCopland, Katrina Leslie, Dean Jones, Roger Pech, JensJacob and Steve Morton.

scale Asian farmers break out of theirterrible poverty trap,” he said. “Simul-taneously, they must provide cheap rice tomillions of even poorer rural rice consumersas a fuel for spurring job creation in adynamic, diversified rural sector.”

Workshop participants spent an entireday at IRRI’s research campus in Los Bañosto continue their discussions and to hearpresentations from IRRI scientists inlaboratories and the field.

T he United States Agency forInternational Development

(USAID) and IRRI cosponsored aworkshop on agriculture and foodsecurity in Asia and the Near East inManila and Los Baños on 28September-5 October. The workshopallowed more than 70 USAIDagriculture, environment and food-aidofficers across Asia and the Near Eastto hear from leading experts in fieldsranging from agricultural research totrade competitiveness. Discussionspromoted the further development andimplementation of a new Asia/Near Eaststrategy for USAID.

As the luncheon speaker on theopening day in Manila, IRRI DirectorGeneral Ronald Cantrell told participantsthat the next Green Revolution will need thedriving force of new technologies providedby research. “The new technologies musthave the capacity to help millions of small-

Genetic Resources Center Head Ruaraidh Sackville Hamiltondescribes IRRI’s conservation efforts during the workshop.

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RICE IN THE NEWS

An international consortium set up todetermine the genome, or geneticmakeup, of rice announced the

completion of a high-quality draft sequenceof the genome on 18 December 2002. TheJapanese-led International Rice GenomeSequencing Project (IRGSP) effectivelycompleted the sequencing of 430 millionbases of the rice genome, setting the stagefor the accelerated development of new ricevarieties to help ensure food security andimprove farmers’ livelihoods.

IRGSP participants include publiclyfunded research institutions in Japan, theUnited States, China, Taiwan (China), SouthKorea, India, Thailand, France, the UnitedKingdom and Brazil. With the help of threeless-detailed genome-sequence draftsassembled over the past two years byprivate-sector researchers, the IRGSPmanaged to complete its definitive draft –described by IRRI Director General RonaldCantrell as “the gold standard for all futureinvestigations of genetic variation in crops”– six years ahead of the initial target.

Japanese Prime Minister JunichiroKoizumi congratulated the collaboratorsduring the announcement event in Tokyo.“The publicly available, high-quality draftsequence of the rice genome is expected totrigger rapid progress in determining thefunction of genes in cereals,” he said. “I amconvinced that genome research will makefar-reaching contributions to solving theconstraints in sustainable food productionand environmental problems.”

As the first major cereal crop to be

sequenced, the rice genome providesdata for improving other grains, suchas maize and wheat, whose largergene sequences are collinear withthat of rice.

“Decoding the rice genome is animportant scientific achievement thatcan lead to improved nutrition andaid in efforts to eliminate hungerthroughout the world,” said U.S.Agriculture Secretary Ann M.Veneman at an event on the same dayin Washington, D.C.

“The rice genome’s sequence iscrucial to our scientific understandingof the staples of life,” added Rita R.Colwell, director of the NationalScience Foundation in the U.S.

Greatly facilitating the ricegenome sequencing effort werecontributions from private com-panies. In 2000, Monsanto indepen-dently produced a draft sequence ofthe rice genome and made its clonesavailable to the IRGSP. Early lastyear, the Swiss agrochemicalcompany Syngenta provided to theIRGSP a draft sequence of thejaponica rice subspecies. At about thesame time, the Beijing Genomics Institutein China produced a similar draft of theindica subspecies. Japonica rice is typicallygrown in temperate regions, while indicavarieties are grown in the tropics.

These achievements spurred discus-sions over whether the internationalconsortium should continue the genome

Rice genes go public

As rice genebank clocks a quarter century,

The International Rice Genebank atIRRI marked its 25th anniversaryon 12 December last year. The

world’s most comprehensive storehouse ofrice biodiversity holds in trust more than108,000 samples of cultivated and wild riceseeds donated by more than 100 countries.The purpose of the genebank – which nowlooks forward to receiving assured, long-term support from a new funding plan – isto conserve the biodiversity of rice and makeseeds available to plant breeders and otherscientists around the globe.

“We protect traditional varieties so theycan be used to help poor rice farmers,”explains Ruaraidh Sackville Hamilton, headof IRRI’s Genetic Resources Center (GRC),which runs the genebank. “We distributeseeds to any nation, provided they sign a

legal agreement that they will not attemptto seek intellectual property protection onthat material.”

Since the mid-1980s, the GRC hasdistributed 250,000 seed samples. It hasalso restored varieties to their native placefollowing their loss due to war (Cambodiaand East Timor), natural catastrophes(Philippines) or other causes (see sidebaron page 28). “We hope to do the same forAfghanistan,” Dr. Sackville Hamilton adds.“Rebuilding the country’s infrastructureshould include restoring Afghan biodiversityas well as introducing improved varieties.”

The seeds are preserved in refrigerated,fire- and earthquake-resistant facilities onIRRI’s research campus in the Philippines.Supplies for immediate exchange are kept at2–4 ⋅C in vacuum-sealed aluminum cans or

project. Eventually participants decided tokeep going, as they were confident that theirdata were usefully more accurate than theearlier drafts – 99.99% accurate. Thesequence data for the entire rice genome arenow in the public domain, deposited in publicdatabases such as GenBank, EMBL and DDBJfor free access to all scientists worldwide.

Rice earned two cover stories in prestigious scientificjournals last year: the 5 April edition of Science (see Rice Today,Vol. 1, No. 2, page 9) and the 21 November issue of Nature, inwhich two papers detail the complete sequences of two ricechromosomes. One research group sequenced chromosome 1and calculated that it contains 6,756 genes; the draft versionreleased earlier this year predicted only 4,467 genes. Asecond group produced a finished sequence of chromosome 4,reporting that 52% of the genes were not completelypredicted by the draft sequence.

Japan: Rice Genome Research Program (acollaboration of the National Institute ofAgrobiological Sciences and the Instituteof the Society for Techno-innovation ofAgriculture, Forestry and Fisheries). UnitedStates: The Institute for Genomic Research,Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, ClemsonUniversity, Washington University in St.Louis, University of Arizona, RutgersUniversity, University of Wisconsin. China:National Center for Gene Research of theChinese Academy of Sciences. Taiwan(China): Academia Sinica Plant GenomeCenter. France: Genoscope. South Korea:Korea Rice Genome Research Program.India: Indian Initiative for Rice GenomeSequencing. Thailand: National Center forGenetic Engineering and Biotechnology.Brazil: Brazilian Rice Genome Initiative.United Kingdom: John Innes Center.

IRGSP participants


IRRI entered into a landmark researchand capacity-building agreement lastmonth with Japan’s National Institute

of Agrobiological Sciences (NIAS), pavingthe way for the next stage of discoveryrevealing the genetic makeup of rice. Thepartnership promises to unlock the secretsof functionality in the recently sequencedgenome of the world’s main food grain,determining which genes strengthen plantsagainst drought, problem soils, diseases andpests – and to do so for the benefit of poorrice farmers and consumers.

The memorandum of agreement cameinto force on 19 December 2002 when it wassigned in Tokyo by IRRI Director General

Partnership opens new chapter in gene discovery

International Rice Genebank continues tooperate according to accepted standards.The same cannot be said for all genebanks.

“The problem is that these storehousesof diversity are being allowed to depreciate,”writes Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief ofScience, in an op-ed supporting the trust.“Serious underfunding prevents adequatecuration. In many banks, living seeds arewaiting to be duplicated while the coolingsystems that protect them break downbecause there is no money to repair them.”

Dr. Kennedy’s op-ed is posted at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3920-2003Jan2.html. To learn moreabout Global Conservation Trust, visitwww.startwithaseed.org. For more on theInternational Rice Genebank, visit www.irri.org/GRC/GRChome/home.htm.

Ronald Cantrell and NIAS President MasakiIwabuchi. It sets the terms for a five-yearIRRI-NIAS collaboration designed, in thewords of the agreement, “to apply genomicsscience and technologies to discover genesof agronomic interest, especially thoseinvolved in stress tolerance, and to buildhuman resources that will enhanceinternational partnerships in agriculturalresearch and development in the developingworld.”

The signing came the day after theofficial announcement – simultaneouslymade in Tokyo and Washington, D.C. – thatthe International Rice Genome SequencingProject (IRGSP) had completed a highlyaccurate sequencing of the rice genome.NIAS has led the IRGSP consortium andplayed a major role in the project.

The new IRRI-NIAS agreementadvances the two institutes’ shared vision“to make new tools and knowledge derivedfrom rice genomics research accessible tohelp solve rice production problems.” Tothis end, it will combine the expertise ofNIAS as a world leader in rice genomicsresearch, IRRI’s long experience in ricebiology and breeding, and the vast store ofgenetic resources held in trust in theInternational Rice Genebank at IRRI.

“There is no doubt in my mind thatcombining our resources to focus on thisimportant strategic area of rice science willbring dividends in the near future,” said Dr.Cantrell. “The agreement between NIASand IRRI represents a first step in that jointendeavor. I am very pleased that we have

been able to reach this agreement soquickly.”

NIAS and IRRI scientists willimplement the agreement throughcollaborative work plans updated annuallyor as mutually agreed. Mutual agreementand the public interest will govern jointpublication of collaborative research results.NIAS and IRRI will exchange breedingmaterials, germplasm, clones, DNAsamples, software and datasets subject tothe execution of material transferagreements and adherence to biosafetyregulations, and with due recognition madeto the original sources of the materials.

The two institutes also agreed that “alloutcomes of NIAS-IRRI joint researchactivities, including all intellectual propertyrights, shall be jointly owned by bothparties.”

heat-sealed aluminum-foil packets. Long-termstorage is in a vault chilled to minus 20 ⋅C.

Conserving biodiversity is a long-termproposition dependent, paradoxically, onyear-to-year funding. The Global Conser-vation Trust – a partnership combining theUnited Nations Food and AgricultureOrganization and IRRI’s parent organization,the Consultative Group on InternationalAgricultural Research – aims to provide apackage of technical assistance andpermanent financial backing for the world’scrop-diversity collections. The trust isworking to raise a minimum of $260 millionfrom corporations, foundations andgovernments to establish an endowment, theinterest from which will provide permanentsupport for genebanks around the world.

Despite recent funding cuts, the

Dating back to at least 3000 BCE – with thefirst known depiction of the rice plant on a

ceramic cup in China – rice has been a richsource of artistic inspiration in Asia for over fivemillennia. On 5 October 2003, the UCLA FowlerMuseum of Cultural History will open a majorexhibition in Los Angeles, California, exploringthe significance of rice in Asian societies asseen through the visual arts. The Art of Rice:Spirit and Sustenance in Asia will feature objectsranging from ancient ceramics,gilded screens, masterfulsculptures and raretextiles tocontemporarypaintings andpopular religiousdepictions, such asthe wood carvings ofthe Philippine Ifugaorice god, or bulul(pictured). Theexhibition, whichwill run untilApril 2004, bringstogether theresearch andcreativity of aninternational groupof more than 20curators, anthro-pologists and artists.For details as theopening approaches,visit www.fmch.ucla.edu/Exhibits/exhibit.htm.

Art of riceArt of rice

a new funding effort takes the long view

Ronald Cantrell (left) and Masaki Iwabuchi.

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South Korea has become thelatest country to endorse theBeijing Declaration on Rice, one

of the key outcomes of the first-everInternational Rice Congress, whichtook place in the Chinese capital inSeptember 2002. Chinese PresidentJiang Zemin opened the congress on16 September with a speechemphasizing the importance ofinternational collaboration inagricultural research and committingChina to a leading role.

“China has managed to feed 22percent of the world’s population withless than 10 percent of the world’sarable land,” President Jiang said atthe opening ceremony. “At present,the 1.2 billion and more Chinese havesufficient food and clothing and, byand large, lead a well-to-do life.China has [therefore] made itscontribution to world grainproduction and security.”

More than 1,000 delegates from atleast 20 countries attended the four-day event, which marked the first-evermeeting of all sectors of the inter-national rice industry, includingresearchers, traders, governmentofficials, private-sector representa-tives, farmers and NGO officers.

While the industry can boast ofmajor successes in recent decades– such as famine-eradicatingproduction increases in China,India, Vietnam and Bangladesh– it continues to struggle withmajor challenges such aspoverty eradication,household food security andimproving farmers’income.

Delegates to thecongress grappled withthese and a host of otherissues as they met attwo main events. Some800 delegates attendedthe 24th InternationalRice Research

Conference, and another 200attended the World Rice CommerceConference. Meanwhile, theInternational Rice Technology andCultural Exhibition attracted 40exhibitors.

Perhaps most significantly,ministers from eight of the world’smajor rice-producing nations –representing about half the planet’spopulation – kicked off the congresswith a special ministerial roundtableon rice on 15 September (see page 12).It was here that the BeijingDeclaration on Rice was firstproposed, with a recommendationfrom Thailand and several othercountries that it should be more fullydeveloped before being circulatedfor final

endorsement. By February, thePhilippines, Laos, Indonesia andSouth Korea had endorsed thedeclaration.

Historic event“I believe the roundtable has alreadyproven itself to have been a historicevent,” said Dr. Ronald P. Cantrell,director general of IRRI. “Not onlydid it bring together some of theworld’s most populous nations – suchas China, India and Indonesia – totalk, for the first time, about rice. Italso came at a crucial time in thehistory of rice with the recentsequencing of the rice genome,” amonumental achievement thatpaves the way for researchersto decode the function ofeach and every ricegene.

Special section: INTERNATIONAL RICE CONGRESS

Beijing puts rice on the table


The congress delegates weremostly from Asia, but there were alsorepresentatives from Africa (whererice production is growing rapidly),North America, Australia, Europe,and Central and South America.Among the host of other issues thecongress faced were the impact ofliberalization on the international ricetrade (some rice cultures could bewiped out) and the terrible povertytrap that continues to ensnaremillions of rice farmers.

“Profitable, sustainable riceproduction is essential to national andregional stability – not just in Asia, butin much of the rest of the world aswell,” commented Dr. Cantrell. “Thedelegates went to Beijing expecting towork, because we had a compre-hensive research program to report onand share, as well as important tradeinformation to analyze and dissect.”

With the United Nations’ decisionlast December to declare 2004 theInternational Year of Rice, plans arenow under development for futurecongresses.

“All rice-producing nations facethe same problems,” Dr. Cantrell said.“For too long, rice farmers have beenthe most deprived and forgotten of all

our foodproducers.

It is ourhope

that, by bringing the rice industrytogether at such congresses, we willget all those involved to focus onthese problems and finally resolvethem to the benefit of everyone –especially poor rice farmers andconsumers.”

Prime economic activityRice farming is one of the world’sprime economic activities because itprovides more sustenance to morepeople than any other food source andis the single largest food source forthe world’s poor. As the main cropgrown on more than 200 millionfarms, it is the single largest sourceof income and employment forhundreds of millions of ruralresidents in the developing world.Because rice fields cover 11 percent ofthe planet’s arable area, or more than500 million ha, rice farmers also havea key role to play in environmentalprotection. Finally, rice is thefoundation of social stability and foodsecurity for some of the world’s mostpopulous nations, including China,India, Indonesia and Nigeria.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin (clockwisefrom left) greets IRRI Board Chair AngelineSaziso Kamba, speaks at the openingceremony of the congress, and shares alight moment with hybrid rice pioneerProf. Yuan Longping and IRRI DirectorGeneral Ronald Cantrell. Gina Zarsadiasexplains IRRI Training Center materialsto exhibition attendees. Thai TradeRepresentative Prachuab Chaiyasan andIRRI Consultant Gelia Castillo check outfarmers’ hats at the Asia Rice Foundationdisplay.

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The first-everInternationalRoundtable on Rice,

featuring 13 ministerialrepresentatives from allof the world’s major riceproducers, has confirmedthat the crop is essentialto the continued health,wealth and prosperity ofalmost half the world’spopulation.

The historic meetingtook place in Beijing on15 September 2002, onthe eve of the firstInternational RiceCongress.

The gathering helpedset the agenda for thecongress, the first timethe international rice industry hasever met. The roundtable also markedthe first time that high officials of theworld’s rice-producing nationsgathered to discuss their kernel ofcultural and economic commonality –rice.

In their opening statements, allthe ministers spoke of the vital rolerice plays in feeding their citizens andas a foundation of their cultures and,in several cases, their religions. “InThailand, rice means life,” saidPrachuab Chaiyasan, the Thai trade

Asian ministers declare ricekey to stability and prosperity

regularly cited as one ofthe most critical politicalfactors influencinggovernments in theregion; if prices reachunacceptable levels,instability can result.

Setting the agenda“While rice consumers getall the political attention,it’s time we realized thatrice producers – orfarmers – also have a keyrole to play in a country’seconomic development,”said Ronald P. Cantrell,IRRI director general.“For too long, rice farmershave been trapped inpoverty and deprived of

technologies that farmers in othersectors take for granted. Our main aimat the International Roundtable onRice was to start developing an agendafor the rice industry that will result insustainable, economically thrivingrice-farming communities withmodern infrastructure and access tothe latest technologies and expertise.”

The roundtable discussionsfocused on the role of rice inmaintaining food security and socialstability, and as a common economicand cultural tie, especially in Asia.

Selected papers presented during the 24th International Rice Research Conference, which took place in conjunction with the rice congress, willappear soon in the book Innovations in Rice Science for Impact and Livelihood of the Poor. The papers include Chinese President Jiang Zemin’sopening address and the latest in cutting-edge rice research presented by some of the world’s most distinguished agricultural scientists:• P.L. Timmer, University of California, San Diego, gives an overview on agriculture and poverty and highlights the need to fund rice research.• T. Sasaki, Rice Genome Research Program of the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences (Japan), covers genome sequencing.• Ingo Potrykus, Institute of Plant Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, discusses Golden Rice for developing countries.• R. Matthews, Cranfield University, UK, looks at rice production, climate change and methane emissions.• Peter Ooi, Food and Agriculture Organization Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program, covers the lessons learned from rice IPM.• Justin Lin, Beijing University, writes about the effects of the World Trade Organization agreement on China’s economy and agricultural sector.• Jun Yu and others from the Beijing Genomics Institute and Chinese Academy of Sciences discuss the Chinese super hybrid rice genome project.• H. Hirochika, National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences (Japan), covers using retrotransposons for insertional mutagenesis in rice.• M. Wahlqvist , Monash University (Australia), and H. Bouis, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, D.C., analyze biofortification.This 800-page volume should be in the library of every rice scientist. Check IRRI’s online publications catalog at www.irri.org/pubcat/pubcontents.htmfor updates on availability and how to order.

Read all about it

A roundtable observer, Philippine National ScientistGelia Castillo, makes a point during the ministerialdiscussions, as IRRI Board Member Mike Gale looks on.

representative and official ministerialrepresentative to the roundtable,whose views were echoed by manyother delegates.

Confirming the pivotal role of ricein keeping people fed and productive,recent research shows that ricesupplies 32% of the total caloriesconsumed by the 3.6 billion peoplewho live in Asia. The price of rice is


“Rice is an essential part of Chinesehistory, culture and national identity,but it also has a key role in manyother influential cultures such as inIndia, Japan and Indonesia,”observed Song Jian, one of thehonorary chairmen of the congressorganizing committee.

The discussions also consideredthe essential roles rice research andaccess to new technologies play inimproving the livelihoods of farmfamilies that grow rice, who representmore than half of all farm familiesworldwide. IRRI’s director generalcommented that this development wasespecially significant for his institute.

“Since IRRI was founded 42 yearsago by the Rockefeller and Fordfoundations, it has been funded mostlyby Western governments,” Dr. Cantrellobserved. “This group includes Japan,which historically has been one of ourbiggest donors. But it is noteworthythat Japan is the only rice-producingnation that has significantly supportedinternational rice research over a longperiod. If rice research is going tocontinue to benefit the poor ricefarmers and consumers of the world,then rice-producing nations need toget together and provide moreresources. We can’t expect Westernnations to support institutions likeIRRI forever.”

Research impactCertainly, publicly funded riceresearch has impact. Over the pastfour decades, it has been instrumentalin increasing potential yields fromfour to more than 10 tons per ha; inhelping to more than double worldrice production from 260 million to600 million tons; in providing ricevarieties that mature quickly to allowtwo or even three crops per year,resist various pests and diseases, needless fertilizer, and thrive under suchstresses as high salinity; and inensuring the development of morenutritious rice.

“There is no doubt that riceresearch has achieved a lot,” Dr.Cantrell said. “However, enormouschallenges remain, especially withregard to alleviating poverty. It is ourhope that the Roundtable on Rice has

started a process that will result inmore research and new technologiesthat will benefit rice farmers andconsumers everywhere.”

Beijing DeclarationAt the conclusion of the roundtable,the ministers agreed to circulate aBeijing Declaration on Rice, whichstates the following:⇑Rice production is the foundation of

food security and social stability foralmost half the world’s population(2.6 billion people). It is essential tothe national stability of the 13 nationsrepresented at the roundtable.

⇑Rice production and consumptionare national characteristics unitingthe 13 countries represented at theroundtable, which include three ofthe world’s largest nations: China,India and Indonesia.

⇑The 13 nations represented at theroundtable all seek economicallystrong and sustainable ruralcommunities with diversified riceproduction playing a key role. Suchcommunities are also recognized asthe foundation of each nation andessential to their continued nationaldevelopment.

⇑Rice research and access to newtechnologies are essential to thelivelihoods and improved well-beingof more than half the world’s ruralfamilies, as well as the developmentof economically strong rice-basedcommunities.

⇑The public sector must have a majorrole in such research and thedevelopment of new, freely availablerice technologies. It is also essentialthat the public sector – in bothnational and international research– be guaranteed the resources itneeds to play this vital role. Whilethe private sector must also play arole, the poverty of most riceproducers and consumers makes itessential that any new technologiesbe made easily accessible to allthose who need them.

⇑More must be done to make thecitizens – especially the youngpeople – of the 13 nationsrepresented at the roundtable moreaware of the importance of rice totheir lives and their cultures.

Ministerial and national representativesBangladesh, Dr. Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir,State Minister, Ministry of Agriculture. Cambodia,Mr. May Sam Oeun, Secretary of State(Agriculture). China, Mr. Du Qinglin, Minister,Ministry of Agriculture; Mr. Liu Jiang, Vice-Chairman, State Development and PlanningCommission; Mr. Zhang Baowen, Vice Minister,Ministry of Agriculture; Prof. Shen Guofang, VicePresident, Chinese Academy of Engineering; Dr.Zhai Huqu, President, Chinese Academy ofAgricultural Sciences. India, Dr. Panjab Singh,Secretary, Department of Agricultural Researchand Extension; Director General, Indian Councilof Agricultural Research. Indonesia, Prof. Dr. Ir.Bungaran Saragih, Mec., Minister, Ministry ofAgriculture. Iran, H.E. Eng. Mahmood Hojjati,Minister, Ministry of Agriculture. Korea (South),Dr. Huhn-Pal Moon, Director General, NationalCrop Experiment Station, Rural DevelopmentAdministration. Laos, Mr. Viravanh Phannourath,Director General, Department of Agriculture.Malaysia, Cik (Ms.) Rosmah Binti Haji Jentra,Undersecretary, Ministry of Agriculture. Myanmar,Maj. Gen. Nyunt Tin, Minister, Ministry ofAgriculture and Irrigation. Sri Lanka, Mr. C.Wijesundra, Deputy Director for Research,Regional Agricultural Development Center.Thailand, Mr. Prachuab Chaiyasan, Minister ofTrade and Representative to the World TradeOrganization, Prime Minister’s Office. Vietnam,Dr. Bui Ba Bong, Vice Minister, Ministry ofAgriculture and Rural Development.

IRRI representativesMrs. Angeline Saziso Kamba (Zimbabwe), Chair,Board of Trustees. Dr. Ronald P. Cantrell (USA),Director General. Dr. Ren Wang (China), DeputyDirector General for Research. Prof. Rudy Rabbinge(Netherlands), Senator and Dean, GraduateSchool, Wageningen University and ResearchCentre; Former Chair, IRRI Board of Trustees.Dr. Emmanuel Adilson Serrão (Brazil), DirectorGeneral, Embrapa Amazonia Oriental; Member,IRRI Board of Trustees. Prof. Keijiro Otsuka(Japan), Deputy Director, Graduate Program,Foundation for Advanced Studies on InternationalDevelopment; Member, IRRI Board of Trustees.Prof. Michael D. Gale (UK), Associate ResearchDirector, John Innes Center; Member, IRRI Boardof Trustees. Dr. Gurdev Khush (India), PlantBreeder and IRRI Consultant. Prof. Gelia T. Castillo(Philippines), Member, Board of Trustees,Philippine Rice Research Institute; Member,Philippine National Academy of Sciences; IRRIConsultant.

Other principal scientists and observersMr. Fazle Hasan Abed (Bangladesh), Founder andExecutive Director, Bangladesh RuralAdvancement Committee; Member, IRRI Board ofTrustees. Mr. Li Zhendong (China), Deputy DirectorGeneral, International Cooperation Division,Ministry of Agriculture. Prof. Yuan Longping(China), Director General, China National HybridRice Research and Development Center. Mr. KarlGutbrod (Germany), Head, Rice and Field CropStrategy, Syngenta Worldwide (Switzerland).Dr. Ikuo Ando (Japan), Plant Breeder and Chief,Rice Breeding Laboratory, National AgriculturalResearch Center for Hokkaido Region.Dr. Muhammad Hanif (Pakistan), AgriculturalDevelopment Commissioner, Ministry of Food,Agriculture and Livestock. Dr. James Cook (USA),Member, National Academy of Sciences; RetiredChief Scientist, Department of Agriculture.Mr. Peter Kenmore (USA), InternationalIntegrated Pest Management Coordinator, UnitedNations Food and Agriculture Organization (Italy).Prof. C. Peter Timmer (USA), Dean, School ofInternational Relations and Pacific Studies,University of California, San Diego. Dr. Ron Phillips(USA), Member, National Academy of Sciences.

Roundtable on Rice

Rice Today April 200314

2002 CGIAR Science Award winners and teamreps (from left): Fred Pearce (Outstanding Journal-ism), Christopher Barr of CIFOR (OutstandingCommunications), Bruce Campbell of CIFOR(Outstanding Scientific Article), Imelda Revillaof IRRI (Outstanding Scientific Support Team),Jagdish Kumar of ICRISAT (King BaudouinAward), Marilyn Louise Warburton of CIMMYT(Promising Young Scientist), Tushaar Shah ofIWMI (Outstanding Scientist), Ruth Meinzen-Dick of IFPRI (Outstanding Partnership).

The Philippine capital was the venue for the 2002 annual generalmeeting of IRRI’s parent organization, marking the first time thisgathering of 500 movers and shakers in publicly funded agricultural

research has taken place outside of Washington, D.C. The meeting of theConsultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) tookplace at the Makati Shangri-la Hotel on 30 October-1 November with thetheme “Agriculture for growth and development.”

IRRI and its partners in the Los Baños Science Community seized thechance to invite delegates to journey 60 km south of Manila on 28 Octoberfor a Philippines Day program and again on 29 October for IRRI Day. Morethan 280 visitors braved heavy rain to board the buses for IRRI Day andwere rewarded by gloriously fresh weather at the institute’s 252-hectareexperimental farm.

“Many visitors said that IRRI Day was the best field day they had everbeen to,” said Mike Jackson, director for program planning and coordination.“Visitors spoke of guides’ enthusiasm and good humor and of the focusedpresentations. Everyone did a great job.”

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2002 CGIAR Science Award winners and teamreps (from left): Fred Pearce (Outstanding Journal-ism), Christopher Barr of CIFOR (OutstandingCommunications), Bruce Campbell of CIFOR(Outstanding Scientific Article), Imelda Revillaof IRRI (Outstanding Scientific Support Team),Jagdish Kumar of ICRISAT (King BaudouinAward), Marilyn Louise Warburton of CIMMYT(Promising Young Scientist), Tushaar Shah ofIWMI (Outstanding Scientist), Ruth Meinzen-Dick of IFPRI (Outstanding Partnership).

(Left) Dr. Reifschneider and Sen. Magsaysay at theIRRI exhibit; (right, from left) IRRI Board Chair AngelineKamba, South African CGIAR Exco Member BongiweNjobe, WARDA Director General Kanayo Nwanze,Future Harvest Executive Director Judith Symonds,and South Africa National Department of Agricul-ture Deputy Director-General Njabulo Nduli.

(Left) Dr. Reifschneider and Sen. Magsaysay at theIRRI exhibit; (right, from left) IRRI Board Chair AngelineKamba, South African CGIAR Exco Member BongiweNjobe, WARDA Director General Kanayo Nwanze,Future Harvest Executive Director Judith Symonds,and South Africa National Department of Agricul-ture Deputy Director-General Njabulo Nduli.

At the exhibit ribbon-cutting in the Makati Shangri-la Hotel are (from left) CGIAR Chairman Ian Johnson; CGIARDirector Francisco Reifschneider (behind); Philippine Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food Chair RamonMagsaysay, Jr.; Patricia El-Ashry; Crawford lecturer Mohamed El-Ashry; and then-Secretary Leonardo Montemayor ofthe Philippine Department of Agriculture. (Insets, clockwise from left) Imelda Revilla, spokesperson for the award-winning scientific support team at IRRI; Odin Knudsen, senior advisor on environmentally and sociallysustainable development to the vice president of the World Bank; Mr. Johnson addresses the meeting; Dr.Reifschneider escorts Philippine Vice-President Theofisto Guingona from the hall following his speech.

At the exhibit ribbon-cutting in the Makati Shangri-la Hotel are (from left) CGIAR Chairman Ian Johnson; CGIARDirector Francisco Reifschneider (behind); Philippine Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food Chair RamonMagsaysay, Jr.; Patricia El-Ashry; Crawford lecturer Mohamed El-Ashry; and then-Secretary Leonardo Montemayor ofthe Philippine Department of Agriculture. (Insets, clockwise from left) Imelda Revilla, spokesperson for the award-winning scientific support team at IRRI; Odin Knudsen, senior advisor on environmentally and sociallysustainable development to the vice president of the World Bank; Mr. Johnson addresses the meeting; Dr.Reifschneider escorts Philippine Vice-President Theofisto Guingona from the hall following his speech.

Rice Today April 2003 15

IRRI Day guides (from left) Josephine Narciso, Carlos Casal, Reycel Maghirang, Alvaro Pamplona, Criselda Ramos, Lina Torrizo, Renato Reaño,Christina Casanova, Jessica Rey, Carlos Huelma, Blesilda Albano, Jose Roxas, Reymunda Labuguen, Tamerlane Mark Nas, Sylvia Avance, LiliaMolina, Ailene Garcia, Ofelia Namuco, Estela Pasuquin, Ma. Theresa Tenorio, Leonor Herradura and Joel Janiya. Not pictured: Ma. Zenaida Borra,Eleah Lucas and Ma. Angeles Quilloy.

IRRI Day guides (from left) Josephine Narciso, Carlos Casal, Reycel Maghirang, Alvaro Pamplona, Criselda Ramos, Lina Torrizo, Renato Reaño,Christina Casanova, Jessica Rey, Carlos Huelma, Blesilda Albano, Jose Roxas, Reymunda Labuguen, Tamerlane Mark Nas, Sylvia Avance, LiliaMolina, Ailene Garcia, Ofelia Namuco, Estela Pasuquin, Ma. Theresa Tenorio, Leonor Herradura and Joel Janiya. Not pictured: Ma. Zenaida Borra,Eleah Lucas and Ma. Angeles Quilloy.

Plant pathologists Nollie Vera Cruz (above left, from left) and NancyCastilla presenting; one of the 10 tractor-and-wagon rigs (above) thattook visitors around to the presentation sites; (inset) IRRI DirectorGeneral Ronald Cantrell; (below, from left) Dr. Cantrell with CGIARDirector Francisco Reifschneider, CGIAR Chairman Ian Johnson andWorldFish Center Director General Meryl Williams.

Plant pathologists Nollie Vera Cruz (above left, from left) and NancyCastilla presenting; one of the 10 tractor-and-wagon rigs (above) thattook visitors around to the presentation sites; (inset) IRRI DirectorGeneral Ronald Cantrell; (below, from left) Dr. Cantrell with CGIARDirector Francisco Reifschneider, CGIAR Chairman Ian Johnson andWorldFish Center Director General Meryl Williams.

At Philippines Day:(left, from left) WorldFish Center

Philippine Project Leader Boris Fabres, thenPhilippine Agriculture Secretary LeonardoMontemayor, Dr. Reifschneider, Mr.Johnson; (below left, from left) IRRI Spokes-person Duncan Macintosh with IFPRI MediaRelations Head Michael Rubinstein; (below,from left) Dr. Reifschneider, Odin Knudsenof the World Bank, Dr. Cantrell, Mr.Johnson, IRRI Board Chair Angeline Kamba,Philippine Representative to the CGIAREliseo Ponce, and Ramon Razal, dean of theCollege of Forestry, University of thePhilippines Los Baños; (below right) Sec.and Monica Montemayor with Dr. Ponce.

At Philippines Day:(left, from left) WorldFish Center

Philippine Project Leader Boris Fabres, thenPhilippine Agriculture Secretary LeonardoMontemayor, Dr. Reifschneider, Mr.Johnson; (below left, from left) IRRI Spokes-person Duncan Macintosh with IFPRI MediaRelations Head Michael Rubinstein; (below,from left) Dr. Reifschneider, Odin Knudsenof the World Bank, Dr. Cantrell, Mr.Johnson, IRRI Board Chair Angeline Kamba,Philippine Representative to the CGIAREliseo Ponce, and Ramon Razal, dean of theCollege of Forestry, University of thePhilippines Los Baños; (below right) Sec.and Monica Montemayor with Dr. Ponce.

Plant physiologist Renee Lafitte (above) makes a presentation as EmileFrison, subsequently IPGRI director general designate, looks on; entomologistK.L. Heong (below) presents; among the visitors are Peter J. Matlon(right, white shirt), Rockefeller Foundation deputy directorfor food security, and Doug Wholey (standing, blueshirt), agronomist in the IFADTechnical Advisory Division.

Plant physiologist Renee Lafitte (above) makes a presentation as EmileFrison, subsequently IPGRI director general designate, looks on; entomologistK.L. Heong (below) presents; among the visitors are Peter J. Matlon(right, white shirt), Rockefeller Foundation deputy directorfor food security, and Doug Wholey (standing, blueshirt), agronomist in the IFADTechnical Advisory Division.


LOOKING UPIN LAOSLOOKING UPIN LAOS

Now able to feed its people with improved harvests fromlowland rice fields, Laos is focusing attention on makingupland agriculture more productive and sustainable

Now able to feed its people with improved harvests fromlowland rice fields, Laos is focusing attention on makingupland agriculture more productive and sustainable


P hath Kantannam and herhusband, Mai Khong, startedtheir garden a little more thantwo years ago. It has sincematured into a roadside slice of

Eden amid the hardscrabble hills that crowdthe Ou River north of Luang Prabang. Thegarden’s mango, lichee, lemon and star appletrees do not yet bear fruit, but among theannual and intermediate cash crops alreadyearning the couple a modest income are chili,eggplant, banana and pineapple. Hedgerows ofleucaena and stylo legumes planted to controlerosion on this single hectare of sloping landalso provide fodder for pigs. A few smallstream-fed ponds at the bottom of the valenurture fish that the couple share with theirchildren and grandchildren. Phath and MaiKhong recently started marketing saplingsfrom their fruit-tree nursery and experimen-tally raising frogs to sell as food.

Unlike biblical Eden, this garden is noparadise of innocent leisure. Phath and MaiKhong devote long hours of hard labor totending and expanding it. They are lucky tohave the time, and they owe their good fortuneto another hectare of land, inherited fromPhath’s mother, on the other side of the river.

That plot consists of several bunded(embanked) rainfed paddies that reliablyproduce the 2.5 tons of rice that the family ofsix consumes each year. Unlike most of theirneighbors, the couple need not resort to

growing uplandrice (a drylandcrop like wheat) onhillsides cleared byslash-and-burn.Their rice needsreadily secured,they devote theirspare time andenergy – and theirupland garden – toimproving theirlivelihood.

“We hardlyever have to weedthe lowland rice,”says Mai Khong,

Phath and Mai Khong’s gardenexperiences a minor popu-lation explosion during afarmers’ field day showcasingthis and several other par-ticipatory research sites alongthe Ou River in northern Laos.Phath (below) addresses thevisitors regarding her fruit-tree nursery. Perennial cropsare a sustainable alternativeto the slash-and-burn system(above) that populationgrowth and the resultingshorter fallows have renderedobsolete.

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citing the most time-consuming chorein upland rice production. “We usethat time to work in the garden.”

The couple’s story illustrates thehappy corollary to a maxim of life inthe Lao highlands: “Without rice, youcan’t do anything.” Because they haverice, they can pursue a wealth ofoptions. And what is good for thefamily is good for the nation. Nowthat Laos grows about as much rice asit needs at the national level, it candevote more resources to tacklingpersistent regional rice deficits,especially in the north, and toaddressing the other economic,environmental and social challengesthat face its 5.3 million people.

“Laos was never in modernhistory self-sufficient in rice until1999,” says Karl Goeppert, IRRIrepresentative to the Lao People’sDemocratic Republic and head of theLao-IRRI Project. “Rice prices for

consumers have since come down andare now similar to prices in neighbor-ing countries.”

The Lao-IRRI Project is a collabo-ration teaming IRRI with the LaoNational Agricultural and ForestryResearch Institute. Since the project’slaunch in 1991, the Swiss Agency forDevelopment and Cooperation hasfaithfully supported it with a commit-ment so far totaling US$14.5 million.In the same period, the Lao riceharvest has grown by more than half.Almost all of that gain has been in thelowlands, where adoption of modern,high-yielding varieties has balloonedfrom 5% to more than 80%.

“One of the most striking featuresof rice production in Laos during thesecond half of the 1990s was the rapidexpansion of the irrigated area,”comments Kouang Douangsila, headof the National Rice Research Pro-gram and Lao-IRRI project coordina-

tor. Since 1995,the irrigated areahas grown byeightfold to100,000 ha, nowaccounting foralmost a fifth oftotal lowland ricearea. Irrigateddry-season fields,all of which areplanted tomodern varieties,have stronglycontributed tothe growingharvest.

“SeveralADB irrigationprojects are stillbeing com-pleted,” Mr.Kouang contin-ues, referring to

Farmers weed upland rice, an activity that absorbs upto half of the crop’s labor demand; (continuing clockwise)participatory research finds Dr. Linquist (left) and Mr.Bounthanh (second from left) learning how farmersdry indigo, boys sitting on the sidelines during anextension visit, and farmers sharing experiences in afield-day discussion group; Ms. Chay (right), the biodiver-sity specialist, inspects a rice sample taken from afarmer’s storehouse; rice is plentiful in a market inVientiane since Laos achieved national rice self-sufficiency.


the Asian Development Bank. “Butafter that there will be no point toirrigating more lowlands. As alandlocked country betweenThailand and Vietnam, both ofwhich are major rice exporters,Laos will never have an economicincentive to produce a big surplus.The ADB and other donors arecorrect to orient new investmenttoward small irrigation projects inthe mountains and so improve riceself-sufficiency in those remote

communities.”Leading Lao-

IRRI’s intensifiedfocus on uplandsustainability isBruce Linquist,an IRRI uplandagronomist whoin 2000 movedfrom the project’sheadquarters inthe Lao capital ofVientiane to anew regionaloutpost in thescenic formercapital of LuangPrabang, tuckedbeside theMekong River inthe mountains ofnorthern Laos.The garden ofPhath and MaiKhong is oneresult of this new

focus – an ongoing, multifacetedexperiment in farmer participatoryresearch to test and disseminatestrategies to improve rice cultivationand diversify livelihoods in the north.

Dr. Linquist works closely withBounthanh Keoboualapha, head ofthe Northern Agriculture and ForestryResearch Center at nearby HuayKhot, who explains why the tradi-tional slash-and-burn system stillgenerally practiced in the region nolonger meets people’s needs.

Shortened fallows“Shifting agriculture has traditionallydepended on long fallow periods tomaintain soil fertility and controlweeds,” Mr. Bounthanh says. “Theneed for more farmland to feed agrowing population has led to wide-spread deforestation, and in manyplaces it has forced farmers to shortenfallows to only two years. As a result,erosion gets worse. And weeds getmuch worse because scrubby orgrassy fallows leave lots of weed seedson the ground, and a lot of themsurvive because the fire that clears thescrub or grass doesn’t burn very hot.”

Today, adequately weeding ahectare of upland rice takes 162person-days, or up to half of thecrop’s total labor investment.Whereas the traditional strength ofthe extensive slash-and-burn systemwas that it exploited ample landavailability to optimize small commu-nities’ meager labor resources, today’s

onerous weeding requirements permitfarmers only marginal returns. Inaddition, shorter fallows and theresulting decline in soil fertility havedepressed upland rice yields for thepast decade. Leaving aside compellingenvironmental reasons to phase outslash-and-burn agriculture, modernconditions have brought upland Laofarmers to the critical point where it isprofitable for them to shift to moreintensive land-use systems.

Fruit trees and other perennialcash crops are ideal for minimizinghillside erosion and associatedenvironmental ills caused by farmingfragile highlands. However, rutted ornonexistent roads make hauling thesecrops to market a nonstarter for

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farmers in remote areas. Thesefarmers face a similar problembringing home such bulky agriculturalinputs as fertilizer – or supplemen-tary supplies of rice.

Sadly, Lao attainment of nationalrice self-sufficiency does not directlysolve the problem of local riceshortages in remote mountaincommunities. And, as mountain folksay, “Without rice, you can’t doanything.”

This is why the Lao-IRRI Projectstresses improving rice productivitywherever possible. Montane lowlands– which are bunded paddies, eitherrainfed or irrigated, on valley bottomsor stepped terraces cut into hillsides(see the inside back cover) – aresolidly sustainable systems that offerstrong potential for intensification.

“For every hectare of montane

lowland that produces one more tonof rice than it did, farmers can reduceby 2 ha the upland area used forslash-and-burn rice,” says Dr.Linquist. “Newly terracing 1 ha ofrainfed lowland paddy can lead to a7 ha reduction in upland rice area.Irrigate that hectare so you can grow asecond crop in the dry season, andyou free 14 ha of upland for cashcrops or reforestation.”

Establishing montane lowlands isnot always an option, though, espe-cially for the poorest of the rural poor.Lao-IRRI is therefore helping thesefarmers identify upland rice varietiesthat perform well under short-fallowconditions, fallow species that restoresoil fertility quickly, and other ways tomake upland rice-based croppingsystems more productive and profit-able.

Lao-IRRI not only strives to helpfarmers build a sustainable future forrice farming in Laos. It also activelysafeguards the country’s distin-guished rice heritage. An earlypriority was to collect samples of themyriad traditional rice varieties stillgrown in the country. Because Laoslies within the center of origin ofcultivated rice, its rice biodiversity isuniquely rich and significant.

From 1995 to 2000, collectorsgathered 13,193 samples of cultivatedrice, which Lao farmers identified

with 3,160 distinct variety names.Also collected were 237 samples ofwild and weedy rice types. The projectestablished a genebank for the short-and medium-term storage of thisgermplasm at the National Agricul-tural Research Center near Vientiane,which multiplies pure seed fordistribution to farmers.

Biodiversity backupAs reported by Chay Bounphanousay,the center’s head of biodiversity,power outages lasting as long as aweek have sometimes turned thefacility’s cold-storage vault into anoven, rendering some accessionssterile. Fortunately, a second set ofLao accessions resides in the Interna-tional Rice Genebank at IRRI (seepage 8). Small as Laos is, thecountry’s contribution of more than13,000 accessions to the InternationalRice Genebank is second in size onlyto India’s 18,000 accessions and half-again as large as third-placeIndonesia’s 8,500.

Lao-IRRI is actively evaluatinghundreds of traditional Lao ricevarieties for yield, disease resistanceand other characteristics. And theproject encourages farmers to con-tinue to plant traditional varietiesalongside modern ones. Lao farmerstypically grow each season several ricevarieties displaying various character-istics, in particular varieties thatmature at different rates. This allowsfarmers to smooth peaks in labordemand. It is also a hedge againstdrought, as late-maturing varietiesmay recover from an early droughtand early varieties may escape a latedrought altogether.

Finally, farmers who endure anannual rice deficit – the number ofmonths of which is the Lao measure ofrural poverty – cherish early varietiesfor hastening the return of homegrownrice to the family table. Even today,


85% of Lao rice is consumed on thefarm where it is grown.

In the highlands of northernLaos, the Lao-IRRI Project capitalizeson the country’s rice biodiversity byintroducing superior traditionalupland varieties to areas where theyare not grown. In so-called “mother-baby trials,” participating farmers run“baby trials” in which they try out acandidate variety, while in theresearcher-assisted “mother trial” allof the test varieties are grown side byside to facilitate comparison. Farmersrate the varieties according to agro-nomic and eating-quality criteria toguide the project’s decisions on whichones to promote. The project bothdepends on the genebank nearVientiane for candidate seeds andcomplements its conservation effortby keeping worthy traditional varie-ties alive in farmers’ fields.

Active collaborationAlso tapping biodiversity, the projectplans this year to carry forward asuccessful experiment in southwesternChina in which farmers control afungal disease by interplanting high-value but disease-susceptible tradi-tional varieties with modern, disease-resistant hybrid rice (see page 26).

Lao-IRRI is active in a collabora-tion led by the Lao National Agricul-tural and Forestry Research Institutethat brings together, with other

partners, four of the 16 FutureHarvest centers of the ConsultativeGroup on International AgriculturalResearch (CGIAR): IRRI, the Kenya-based World Agroforestry Centre(formerly the International Centre forResearch in Agroforestry [ICRAF]),the Colombia-based InternationalCenter for Tropical Agriculture(Spanish acronym CIAT), and the SriLanka-based International WaterManagement Institute (IWMI).

The tasks of the Integrated UplandAgricultural Research Project (IUARP)are to develop, test and refine amethodology for integrated participa-tory upland agricultural research,while reinforcing the research capacityof national partners; to developsustainable livelihood systems asalternatives to slash-and-burn; and toenhance development, decision-making and leadership capacity withinthe target communities.

“The IUARP is an on-the-groundcollaboration to integrate participatoryactivities aimed at developing im-proved livelihood systems,” summa-rizes Dr. Linquist. “It’s also a model ofCGIAR center collaboration.”

In several villages along the OuRiver, the project and its organiza-tions work with cooperating farmerslike Phath and Mai Khong to establishexperimental and demonstration sitesto test and disseminate strategies forimproving rice cultivation and fordiversifying crop, livestock andfishery options. Interplanting, to citeonly one strategy applicable in a rangeof environments, pairs rattan withteak or paper mulberry, for example,and pineapple with legume hedge-rows. Experimental improved fallowcrops to plant in rotation with uplandrice offer benefits in addition tocontrolling erosion.

“A good fallow species shouldimprove or maintain soil fertility,”explains Dr. Linquist. “It should be

Rural communities in the mountains ofnorthern Vietnam are among the poorest inthe land. They have benefited the least fromthe doi moi (renovation) reforms that since1986 have transformed a nation of chronicfood shortages into one of the world’s

leading exporters ofrice, coffee, rubber,tea and otheragricultural products.The Mountain Agrar-ian Systems Program(SAM by its Frenchacronym) has since1998 been studyinghow farmers inremote Bac KanProvince adjust to therapid policy andinstitutional changesbrought by the doimoi reforms and howto help them prosperthrough sustainableadaptations to their

rice-based cropping systems (see Rice Today,Vol. 1, No. 1, pages 20-25).

SAM researchers and collaborators havenow published a volume of studies resultingfrom their interdisciplinary work in Bac Kan.The research provides a foundation forunderstanding the successes and failures ofpast policies and projects, and for targetingthe groups most in need of developmentassistance today.

Available in English and Vietnamesefrom Institut de Recherche pour leDéveloppement ([email protected];www.ird.fr/us) or IRRI ([email protected];www.irri.org).

Upland analysis

Castella JC, Quang DD,editors. 2002. Doi Moi inthe Mountains. Land usechanges and farmers’livelihood strategies in BacKan Province, Viet Nam.Hanoi, Vietnam: TheAgricultural PublishingHouse. 283 pages.

easy to establish and grow, and itshouldn’t compete with rice. Impor-tantly, it should offer an economicbenefit that can be realized in theshort term. We’ve found that thelegume crotalaria, for example, is agood nitrogen fixer and biomassproducer. But, if there isn’t anotheruse for it, farmers aren’t interested.

“Participatory research takes a lotof time and effort in the first couple ofyears,” he concludes. “But the effortpays off because you earn farmers’trust and their willingness to collabo-rate. And, finally, you achieve morerapid adoption of sustainable tech-nologies.”

Farmers file out of a participatory research siteduring a field day and, Phath among them (below),taste traditional rice varieties from a “mother-babytrial.” A shop in Luang Prabang (left) displays paperlanterns made from local paper mulberry (along withdried strips of the bark), a popular fallow crop.


The new Rice Knowledge Bank laysthe benefits of more than four decadesof research at your fingertips

The new Rice Knowledge Bank laysthe benefits of more than four decadesof research at your fingertips

Organized freefor allOrganized freefor allI t was one of those magic moments

when Rajat M. Nag wished he hada camera. Bubbling with enthus-

iasm, two youngsters were takingdelight in demonstrating the basicsof computer use to their parents.But for Mr. Nag, who is directorgeneral of the Mekong Departmentof the Asian Development Bank, thisheart-warming scene went waybeyond cute.

The room was not a comfortable,well-appointed den, but one of thecramped, spartan Internet cafés thatdot the roadside in the impoverishedrice-growing expanses of northeasternThailand. What intrigued Mr. Nagmost was what the kids had up. Notfor them the digital mayhem of thelatest computer game. On their screenwere pages from Rice Doctor, adiagnostic program developed by

IRRI scientists to help rice farmersmanage the pests and diseases thatattack their crops. The kids weretranslating the relevant pages of RiceDoctor into Thai for their parents.

Farmers will benefit“I loved hearing this story,” says MarkBell, the head of the Training Centerat IRRI. “It demonstrates that,although very few poor rice farmers


(NARES) and other partners that runextension services. In other words,IRRI trains trainers, who then adaptinstitute research methods andrecommendations to local conditionsand relay them to farmers. That said,one of the hardest challenges inagricultural development remains, asalways, the timely and effectivetransfer of technologies from theresearch laboratory to farmers’ fields.

All too often, new technologiesare successfully developed only to failto reach those who need them most –the farmers – because of poorcommunication. Even worse,potentially valuable technologies thatlanguish unused can becomeforgotten and permanently lost.Meanwhile, NGOs have begun to playan important role in extension, butfew have the resources or expertise to

can use a computer or have access toone, if you make information availableon the Internet, chances are manyfarmers will benefit in some way.”

To be sure, rice knowledge rarelyflows this directly from IRRI tofarmers. The institute focuses itstraining and other knowledge-dissemination efforts on the staffmembers of national agriculturalresearch and extension systems

Easy access: training and courseware specialist Albert Atkinson demonstrates how touse the Rice Knowledge Bank to Mark Bell, head of the IRRI Training Center. Contentcreated by IRRI scientists and others is structured so that material residing within oneof the bank’s six major categories can be cross-referenced and combined with itemsfrom other areas.

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develop their owntechnologies. Only withaccess to technologiesdeveloped by scientists ininstitutes like IRRI canthey hope to achieveimpact.

Into the yawning gapbetween research andimpact has stepped theRice Knowledge Bank.This is the world’s firstcomprehensive, digitallibrary of trainingmaterials on rice farmingand one of the first digitalextension services forthose who work with poorfarmers. What is more, the wealth ofinformation on rice production andtraining in the Rice Knowledge Bank– which, of course, includes RiceDoctor – continues to grow with newcontributions made by scientists andeducators from IRRI and elsewhere.

Scientists’ participationIRRI training materials have alwaysbeen notable for their quality andfocus, thanks to a tradition ofscientists actively participating intraining. What is new about the RiceKnowledge Bank is that it provides allthis in a breakthrough format thatsets a new standard in organizingmaterial for easy retrieval. Borrowingthe latest and best ideas from private-

sector work in this area, the RiceKnowledge Bank offers governmentextension officers and NGO staffers –and anyone else who logs on –unprecedented access to riceknowledge and training information.

IRRI aims to make this dynamicInternet portal the world’s centralrepository of rice knowledge andtraining materials. The knowledgebank has made a good start bycapturing much of IRRI’s 42 years ofrice research in digital form, whichallows it to be shared, searched andused in any part of the world withInternet connectivity. For areas wherethe Internet is inaccessible, the RiceKnowledge Bank is built to run onCD-ROM. From either source, users

can easily call up thematerial in a form ready-formatted for printing,using a concept known assingle-source publishing.

Content in the RiceKnowledge Bank falls intosix categories or areas:1) e-Learning Courses,2) Field Diagnosis andPractices, 3) Fact Sheets,4) Reference Materials,5) Rice Biological Data-bases, and 6) TrainingMaterials. Within eacharea, content is structuredas reusable, or shared,learning and information

objects, meaning that objects residingwithin one area can be cross-referenced and combined with itemsfrom other areas. For example, theRice Grain Quality course, which islocated within e-Learning Courses,uses any number of objects from otherareas, such as various referencematerials and the decision-supporttool TropRice, which resides in FieldDiagnosis and Practices.

At the institute level, scientistsare now using the Rice KnowledgeBank to prepare materials fortraditional classroom courses. Ratherthan reinvent the wheel, they searchthe bank for their topic, see what hasalready been written and then makenecessary adjustments. When their

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The reach of cyberspace: Internet storefronts (above) in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu,India; the IRRI Training Center’s e-Learning for Development course created a far-flunglearning community for two weeks in August and September 2002, in which 27students from 14 countries (map below) completed the course at home.


course is complete, they upload therevised materials into the TrainingMaterials area, where it is stored foruse during the next training. This cansave hours of preparation time andensure that training messages aredelivered consistently.

New dimension“The Training Materials site isreceiving materials developed bymany IRRI scientists and theirpartners,” says Albert Dean Atkinson,the IRRI training and coursewarespecialist who leads the ongoingdevelopment of the Rice KnowledgeBank. “These include people fromCAB International, the University ofQueensland and the Royal Agricul-tural College of Cirencester. We alsocapture and store input from studentsand instructors where it can besearched and accessed.

“With regard to the systematicmanagement and delivery of

Twenty-five years ago last December, theInternational Rice Genebank at IRRI openedcold-storage facilities that now hold in trustmore than 108,000 samples of ricebiodiversity donated by more than 100countries (see page 8). Last year, IRRIlaunched the Rice Knowledge Bank, thedynamic Internet portal that aims tobecome the world’s central repository ofrice knowledge and training materials.

This year, the new IRRI Image Bank isoffering online the world’s most com-prehensive library of photography relatedto rice research and farming. Visit the IRRIImage Bank at http://rice-photos.irri.organd read about it in the next issue of RiceToday.

Banking on IRRIknowledge, this adds an exciting newdimension to IRRI – and to theCGIAR in general,” adds Dr. Atkin-son, referring to the ConsultativeGroup on International AgriculturalResearch, IRRI’s parent organization.

The possibilities made evident bythe Rice Knowledge Bank have spurredthe development of digital extension asa discipline of its own. IRRI is nowoffering digital extension workshopsfor NARES, NGOs and farmersthemselves. The workshops focus onhow to use the Rice Knowledge Bankto build capacity that allowsparticipants to make better-informedrice-production decisions forthemselves or their constituents.

“The Rice Knowledge Bank will bea big help to our organization becauseit is very informative,” commentsAnita V. Antonio, a workshopparticipant from the Philippine RiceResearch Institute. “It will readilyassist our extension workers in the

field who are attending to the differentproblems of rice farmers, especially inthe area of principles and practices offarm management.”

Visit the Rice Knowledge Bank atwww.knowledgebank.irri.org.


C rop biodiversity has a key roleto play in helping farmersimprove their livelihoods

while protecting the environment andtheir health. This is emerging fromthe latest rice research on the benefitsof planting traditional rice varietieseither alongside or in place of themodern, high-yielding varietiesnormally grown today by most of theworld’s 200 million rice farmers.Many of these traditional varietiescommand a higher price because of

their popularity with consumers butare rarely grown because of their lowyields, susceptibility to disease orother drawbacks.

In what The New York Timesdescribed as a “stunning success” and“one of the largest agriculturalexperiments ever,” an IRRI-led teamof scientists working in the south-western Chinese province of Yunnanfound a way to use biodiversity toimprove control of a major ricedisease despite reduced pesticide

applications. By planting differenttypes of rice alongside each other,researchers found they could almostcompletely control rice blast, a fungaldisease that can cost the rice industrymillions of dollars per year.

Maximum effectMaximum effectMaximum effectMaximum effectMaximum effectExploiting biodiversity to protectcrops is hardly new to some farmersin Yunnan and elsewhere. What isnew is how researchers used cutting-edge science in their collaboration

Biodiversityadds valueBiodiversityadds value


with farmers to determine how to usethis strategy to maximum effect.

Thousands of farmers in Yunnanhave now embraced the techniquebecause it improves yield and incomewhile reducing their reliance onchemicals. The strategy calls forfarmers to interplant one row of

glutinous rice – which commands ahigh price but is susceptible to blast –between four to six rows of blast-resistant hybrid rice in a repeatingpattern.

Simple as this description ofthe technique sounds, refininginterplanting to make it profitable has

been a challenge. The projectcoordinator, Tom Mew, who is alsothe head of IRRI’s Entomology andPlant Pathology Division, hasdedicated decades to working withfarmers to control the pests anddiseases that can devastate theircrops.

The practice of interplanting high-valuebut disease-susceptible traditional ricevarieties with disease-resistant hybrids isdressing the rice lands of southwest Chinain pinstripes. Farmers (right) transplant severalrows of hybrids between previouslytransplanted rows of a traditional variety.

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Dr. Mew and his team reasonedthat planting a wide area with a singlevariety of rice, as has been done in theRed River Valley of Yunnan, invitedepidemic outbreaks of such diseases asblast. The pathogen adapted to thedefenses of one plant and then was ableto attack the remainder of the crop. Buta crop that exhibited biodiversity wouldsurround the pathogen with dissimilarplants, making it harder for the diseaseto spread.

“Our challenge was to simulatethrough varietal deployment on actualrice farms a situation similar tonatural diversity and achieve theresistance to pests or diseases thatsuch diversity supplies,” Dr. Mewsaid. “We focused on interplantingrice, or growing different varieties inthe same field.”

Improved incomeImproved incomeImproved incomeImproved incomeImproved incomeAn experiment in 1997 covering a fewhectares indicated that interplantingcould achieve 92–99% control of riceblast while boosting yields by 0.5–1ton per ha, allowing farmers toimprove their income through bothhigher production and reduced costs.The following year, cooperatingfarmers interplanted 812 ha withhybrid and glutinous rice. Theysprayed the crop with fungicide onlyonce. Yields reached 9 tons of hybridrice and nearly 1 ton of high-valueglutinous rice per hectare. Even moreimpressive was that the incidence ofblast in glutinous rice fell to 5%

within the interplanted crop, from acommon level of 55% in monoculture,and the yield loss dropped from 28%to nothing at all.

In 1999, the interplanted areaexpanded to 3,342 ha, and cooper-ating farmers reported that thetechnique was providing them with anaverage of US$281 more income perhectare. By the end of 2001, about60% of rice farm households in theindica rice area of Yunnan had

adopted interplanting of rice varieties,and the area under mixtures hadexpanded to 106,000 ha. Last year,rice interplanting covered an area ofmore than 200,000 ha in 101 countiesof Yunnan.

The IRRI-Yunnan research teamplans to extend the approach to otherprovinces in southwest China and toother rice-producing countries,including the Philippines, Indonesia,Laos and Vietnam.

Several rows of hybrid rice control blast disease in the taller traditional glutinous varieties, which are popular with consumers and earn farmers extra income.

Recent projects in IRRI’s host country,the Philippines, have seen traditionalrice varieties successfully reintroducedin areas where they had been lost.

On the southern island of Mindanao,IRRI is conducting an on-farmparticipatory trial with about 50 farmerstesting some 20 improved andtraditional upland rice varieties. Thefarmers have so far commentedfavorably on two traditional uplandvarieties, Azucena and Dinorado, ratingthe IRRI-supplied seed above both their own traditional material and modern varieties.

The farmers had lost most of their own seed for Azucena and Dinorado following a shiftout of upland rice into maize, and the seed that remained with them had become badlymixed with other varieties. Farmers supplied with new stocks of pure seed from theInternational Rice Genebank at IRRI (see page 8) said they wanted to plant the varietiesagain next year, as they grew well and commanded a good price.

Another project, in 2001 in the Cagayan Valley of the northern Philippines, saw researchersintroduce to local farmers a system of double cropping that included the traditional varietyWag-wag, which had all but disappeared from local farms. Farmers said the strengths of thesystem were increased profitability, reduced input costs, a better market price, and thepotential for adding crops other than rice, such as mung bean, in the wet season.

IRRI and the Philippine Rice Research Institute had earlier distributed in the CagayanValley two tons of rice seeds of 20 modern and eight traditional varieties. This was to assistfarmers who lost their seed stocks when crops failed because of El Niño of 1997 and TyphoonLoleng in 1998.

Philippine homecoming

Dinorado.

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PEOPLE

Crops Research Institute for the Semi-AridTropics (ICRISAT). An Irish national, Dr.Keatinge previously served at theInternational Institute of TropicalAgriculture (IITA) in Nigeria as assistant tothe director general for resourcemobilization. He was also director of IITA’sResource and Crop Management Divisionfrom 1999 to 2002. Dr. Keatinge has over25 years’ experience as a systemsagronomist and more than 100 scientificpapers to his credit.

Rajesh Agrawal in October becamethe new director of finance at ICRISAT.Prof. Agrawal was previously associateprofessor at the Indian Institute ofManagement in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Hehas extensive teaching, research andconsulting experience in finance,management, accounting and tax planning,and has authored several research papersand books on accounting systems. Hereplaces Kwame Akuffo-Akoto, who is nowIRRI’s director of finance.

Mangala Rai is the new directorgeneral of the Indian Council of AgriculturalResearch and secretary of the Departmentof Agricultural Research and Education. A

breeder by training who specialized in seedproduction and issues related to intellectualproperty rights, Dr. Rai succeeds PanjabSingh, who retired on 31 December.

Ruben L. Villareal on 31 Decembercompleted his three-year term as directorof the Southeast Asian Regional Center forGraduate Study and Research in Agriculture(SEARCA). The officer in charge of SEARCAis Djoko Suprapto, deputy director forgraduate scholarship and research anddevelopment, pending the appointment ofa new director.

Pierre Rogertraded microbiologyfor painting andmusic after 35 yearsof service at theInstitut de Recherchepour le Développe-ment in France, mostrecently as director of research. Thoughretired, Dr. Roger is still involved inpreparing book chapters and teaching. Heserved at IRRI as a soil microbiologist in1979-91, from which time this picture dates.Dr. Roger’s new email address is theeuphonic [email protected].

New head for IPGRI

Emile Frison is thedirector general

designate of the Rome-based International PlantGenetic Resources Insti-tute (IPGRI), one ofIRRI’s sister FutureHarvest centers of theConsultative Group on

International Agricultural Research(CGIAR). IPGRI’s mandate is to use cropdiversity to advance sustainable dev-elopment. Dr. Frison, a Belgian national, iscurrently director of the InternationalNetwork for the Improvement of Banana andPlantain, one of IPGRI’s three programs.

Dr. Frison has spent most of his careerin international agricultural research,including 18 years of work related to plantgenetic resources. He joined IPGRI in 1987and a decade later launched the GlobalProgram for Musa Improvement, whichbrought together researchers and growerswith an interest in bananas and plantains.In 2002, he launched the GlobalConsortium on Musa Genomics, whose goalis to decode the genetic sequence of thebanana and use it to improve the varietiesavailable to smallholder farmers.

Dr. Frison will take over as directorgeneral on 1 August, when Geoffrey Hawtinfinishes his term.

Swaminathan heads Pugwash Movement

M .S. Swaminathan, former director general of IRRI (1982-88), has been electedpresident of the prestigious Pugwash Movement. The first Indian to head the

movement, he will hold the position for five years from his installation in August 2002.Dr. Swaminathan is also a UNESCO-Cousteau professor of eco-technology and

chairman of the Swaminathan Research Foundation, a non-profit Chennai-basedorganization that promotes sustainable development.

The Pugwash movement started in 1957 as a global conscience-keeper. “Pugwash dealsmainly with the use and abuse of science,” explains Dr. Swaminathan. “The question is,How can science be a powerful instrument for human well-being and happiness, and notbecome an element of human destruction?”

He added, “The choice of an agricultural scientist is significant at a time when childrenare being sold in a country like Afghanistan for wheat.”

Emil Q. Javier, chair of the interim Science Council of the CGIAR, was namedon 9 December one of the Ten Outstanding Filipinos (TOFIL) for 2002 by

the Philippine Jaycee Senate and the Insular Life InsuranceCompany. Dr. Javier was on the IRRI Board of Trustees in 1994-95,including service as chair. He has also been director of theInstitute of Plant Breeding of the University of the Philippines,

Los Baños (UPLB), chancellor of UPLB, secretary of thePhilippine Department of Science and Technology,

director general of the Asian Vegetable Researchand Development Center, and president of the

University of the Philippines (UP) System.

Partners on the move

Enrica Porcari, an Italian nat-

ional, in Septemberbecame the CGIARchief informationofficer (CIO). Ms.Porcari brings to thisnewly created pos-ition in Penang,

Malaysia, extensive knowledge andexperience regarding informationtechnology related to development, havingworked as chief of telecommunications andICT field services at the United NationsFood and Agriculture Organization’s WorldFood Program, and as coordinator ofCGNET services to CGIAR centers. Untilrecently, she was also a fellow at the ReutersDigital Vision Fellowship Program atStanford University. As CIO, Ms. Porcarileads the development and implementationof the CGIAR’s information-technology andknowledge-management strategies.

John Donough Heber Keatinge inOctober became the new deputy directorgeneral for research at the International

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Former IRRI principal plant breeder Gurdev S. Khush (left) was named an adoptedand distinguished son of Laguna Province, Philippines, for his leadership of IRRI’srice breeding program. Laguna Governor Teresita Lazaro and officers of the Lagunaprovincial government presented the award to Dr. Khush on 9 September in Sta. Cruz.

Awards recognize achievements

C alvin Qualset, IRRI Board ofTrustees member and founding

director of the Genetic ResourcesConservation Program of the University ofCalifornia’s Division of Agriculture andNatural Resources, received the 2002William L. Brown Award for Excellence inGenetic Resources Conservation. TheMissouri Botanical Garden, incollaboration with the Donald Danforth

Plant Science Center, Washington University in St. Louis and theWorld Agriculture Forum, sponsored a symposium on 5 Novemberin St. Louis to honor Dr. Qualset’s accomplishments.

Tom Mew, plant pathologist and head of IRRI’s Entomologyand Plant Pathology Division, received the Friendship Award 2002from the government of Jiangsu Province, China. The award,presented in Nanjing on 20 October, recognizes Dr. Mew’scontribution to protecting rice from diseases, especially thebiological control of bacterial blight and sheath blight in Jiangsu.Dr. Mew and collaborators from the Jiangsu Academy of Agri-sciences isolated the non-pathogenic bacteria B916, whichsuppresses seedborne fungal pathogens. This technology hasrecently been applied on more than 340,000 ha in Jiangsu.

Sant Singh Virmani, plant breeder and deputy head of IRRIPlant Breeding, Genetics and Biochemistry, received the ThirdWorld Network of Scientific Organizations Award in Agriculturefor 2000 in New Delhi on 21 October 2002, at a ceremony delayedby the 9/11 terror attacks. Dr. Virmani received the award duringthe 7th General Assembly of the Third World Network of ScientificOrganizations. At a 12 November luncheon of the Crop ScienceSociety of America in Indianapolis, Indiana, Dr. Virmani receivedthe 2002 International Service in Crop Science Award for his workin developing and disseminating hybrid rice in the tropics.

J.K. Ladha, IRRI soil fertility and plant nutrition specialist,was made a Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy at aconcurrent event in Indianapolis.

B. Mishra, project director of the Directorate of RiceResearch, Hyderabad, India, received the 2002 Senadhira RiceResearch Award in September at the International Rice Congressin Beijing (see page 10). The award – which commemoratesDharmawansa Senadhira, leader of IRRI’s research program onflood-prone rice until his death in 1998 – recognizes Dr. Mishra’soutstanding contributions to salinity-tolerance rice-breedingresearch and development in India. More than 30 salt-tolerant ricevarieties developed by Dr. Mishra are now broadly cultivated insalt-affected inland, coastal and sodic areas of India.

Keeping up with IRRI staff

G uy Kirk, former soil chemist inIRRI Crop, Soil and Water Sciences

(CSWS), on 1 February started as professorof soil systems and head of the Soil SystemsGroup at the National Soil ResourcesInstitute (NSRI) at Cranfield University,United Kingdom. Established in August2001, NSRI brings together various groupswith expertise in soil and land resources. Dr.

Kirk is also putting the final touches on The chemistry of submergedsoils, a book based primarily on his 13-year body of work at IRRI.

Muhammed Alam in September joined CSWS to conductresearch on site-specific nutrient management and integrated pestmanagement practices.

Ravindra Kumar in September joined CSWS to develop andvalidate physiologically based protocols suitable for the massscreening of rice breeding lines for drought tolerance and to compiledata on certain drought-tolerance mapping populations.

Stephan M. Haefele in February joined CSWS as a soilscientist/agronomist under the supervision of To Phuc Tuong.

Hum Nath Bhandari in September joined the SocialSciences Division (SSD) with responsibility for analyzing farm-leveldata collected for studying drought-coping mechanisms of rainfedrice farmers in eastern India, northeast Thailand and southernChina.

Manik Lal Bose in July joined SSD to assist MahabubHossain in conducting dialogues and workshops with Bangladeshipartners. He also analyzes and interprets interview and survey dataon rural livelihoods and changes in the rural economy.

Mohammed Zainul Abedin in January joined SSD as aninternational research fellow under the supervision of Dr. Hossain.

Devendra K. Dwivedi in July joined Plant Breeding,Genetics and Biochemistry (PBGB) with responsibility fordeveloping significantly improved IR64 lines suitable for the rainfedenvironments of eastern India.

Ish Kumar in August joined PBGB to help manage aninternational network on hybrid rice, to develop hybrid ricetechnology using two- and three-line breeding systems, and toimprove grain quality in hybrids.

Rhoda Lantin is the new manager of the Analytical ServicesLaboratory, overseeing the operations of the plant and soil analysis,mass spectrometer, radioisotope and organic analysis laboratories.

Virendra Pal Singh, anagronomist with 30 years’service to IRRI, has left theinstitute to establish the SouthAsia Office of the WorldAgroforestry Center. During aworkshop in January, N.I.Bhuiyan (right), Bangladesh RiceResearch Institute director ofresearch, presented a plaque toDr. Singh, as wife Mercedita PalSingh looked on. R.K Singh,IRRI liaison scientist for India,commended Dr. Singh for hiscontributions to the rainfedrice systems of eastern India.

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PEOPLE


In recent months, IRRI has addedseven new titles to its inventory ofmore than 100 books and

publications currently available on riceresearch and related topics. Check theIRRI online publications catalog atwww.irri.org/pubcat/pubcontents.htm forpricing and ordering information on theseand other titles and for announcementsthat new books are becoming available.

Water-wiseRice Production(edited by B.A.M.Bouman et al;356 pages)explores ways togrow rice usingless water tosafeguard foodsecurity andpreserve preciouswater resources.This book, whichreviews progress

made in developing water-saving tech-nologies for rice production, has sectionson intermittent irrigation, the system ofrice intensification, aerobic rice, rice-wheat, physiology and breeding, andirrigation systems. An accompanying CDcontains information on technologytransfer for water savings in thePhilippines.

Developmentsin the Asian RiceEconomy (editedby M. Sombilla etal; 436 pages)covers emergingtrends in ricesupply anddemand. Govern-ment policy-makers andfarmers can usethe informationprovided to understand how trends in ricesupply, demand and trade change witheconomic growth, political developmentand demographic changes. Countrystudies cover China, India, Indonesia,Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam,Philippines, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.

Rice: APractical Guideto NutrientManagement(edited by T.Fairhurst and C.Witt and co-published withthe Potash &Phosphate

NEW BOOKSInstitute [PPI]; 140 pages) is a pocket-sized guidebook for managing nutrientsand detecting nutrient deficiency andtoxicity symptoms in rice grown intropical and subtropical regions. Acompanion to Rice: Nutrient Disordersand Nutrient Management (also co-published by IRRI and PPI), this guiderefines and simplifies site-specificnutrient management (SSNM) conceptsfor practitioners. The SSNM approach hasbeen successfully evaluated in a widerange of farmers’ fields in Asia and is nowwell positioned for wider-scale evaluationand adaptation by Asian farmers.

ORYZA2000:ModelingLowland Rice(by B.A.M.Bouman et aland co-published withthe Wagenin-gen Universityand ResearchCentre [WUR];235 pages) isthe successor toa series of

lowland rice growth simulation modelsdeveloped by IRRI and WUR in the 1990s.Besides scientific and programmingupdates, ORYZA2000 contains newfeatures that allow a more explicitsimulation of crop management options,such as irrigation and nitrogen fertilizermanagement. It can also be used inapplication-oriented research such as thedesign of crop ideotypes and the analysisof yield gaps. Full documentation of themodel, calibration programs, and threesets of example data input files areprovided on an accompanying CD.

RiceAlmanac,third edition(edited by J.L.Maclean et al;co-publishedwith the Inter-nationalCenter forTropicalAgriculture,West AfricaRice Develop-ment Association, and Food andAgriculture Organization; 253 pages) hasbecome a standard source book for themost important economic activity onearth. It brings together generalinformation about rice and data about riceproduction worldwide. The third edition

has been fully updated and expanded toinclude 64 countries – from Afghanistanto Venezuela. There are also discussionson international issues important to ricesuch as the looming water crisis, globalclimate change and biotechnology.

DirectSeeding:ResearchStrategies andOpportunities(edited by S.Pandey et al;383 pages)demonstrateshow Asian ricesystems areundergoingvarious typesof change inresponse to

economic factors and technologicalopportunities in farming. For example,there has been a shift from transplantingto direct-seeding methods for riceestablishment. The rising cost of labor hasprovided economic incentives for directseeding, and the availability of short-duration rice varieties and chemical weed-control methods has made such a shiftprofitable. Papers in this book review pastpatterns of changes in crop establishmentand factors explaining such patterns,assess the likely future patterns of changein crop establishment in variousecosystems and regions, and identifystrategic research issues for improvingrice productivity by manipulating crop-establishment methods and relatedfactors.

A Handbookof Rice Seed-borne Fungi (byT.W. Mew andP. Gonzales; 83pages) focuseson the importantseedborne fungithat causediseases of ricefoliage, stem,leaf sheath,root, grain andinflorescence. It provides information onmore than 50 species that have beendetected in rice seeds during routinetesting and analysis. The information,which can be used for teaching and as areference when conducting seed healthtesting in different laboratories, should beused in conjunction with availableinformation on local rice-growingconditions.


CONFERENCES, MEETINGS AND WORKSHOPS

EVENTSDate Event Venue Contact30 Apr- 2nd International Conference Las Palmas, Gran [email protected]; www.2 May on Water Resources Canaria, UK wessex.ac.uk/conferences/2003/

Management 2003 waterresources2003/pp.html30 May- Empowering women through info. and Pune, India http://gendwaar.gen.in;2 Jun knowledge: from oral traditions to ICT [email protected] Jun ECOSUD 2003: Fourth Siena, Italy [email protected];

International Conference on www.wessex.ac.uk/conferences/Ecosystems and Sustainable 2003/ecosud03/index.htmlDevelopment

1-6 Jun Mechanisms of Cell Signalling Hong Kong [email protected] Jun Int’l Conference on Regional Raipur, India e-mail: [email protected]

Climate Change and Agriculture2-6 Jun Nitrogen Fertilizer Production Belgium [email protected]; [email protected];

Technology Workshop www.ifdc.org15-27 Jun Agroecology, IPM and East Lansing, [email protected]

Sustainable Agriculture Michigan, USA16-21 Jun 7th International Congress of Barcelona, Spain [email protected];

Plant Molecular Biology www.ispmb2003.com29 Jun- 11th Int’l Conference on Intelligent Brisbane, Australia www.iscb.org/ismb2003/3 Jul Systems for Molecular Biology index.shtml29 Jun- 7th International Conference on Ravello, Italy [email protected];3 Jul Productivity, Public Goods and www.economia.uniroma2.it/

Public Policy conferenze/icabr200329 Jun- 1st FEMS Congress of European Cankarjev Dom, www.fems-microbiology.org/3 Jul Microbiologists Ljubljana, Slovenia congress2003.htm6-11 Jul 15th International Plant Protection Beijing, China [email protected]; www.

Congress ipmchina.cn.net/ippc/index.htm6-12 Jul XIX International Congress of Melbourne, Australia [email protected]

Genetics13-18 Jul Internship in Intellectual Property East Lansing, [email protected]

Rights Technology Transfer, Use Michigan, USAand Management

19-23 Jul BioChE-03 Boulder, Colorado, [email protected];USA www.engconfintl.org/3am.html

27-30 Jul 2003 International Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, Nevada, http://www.asae.org/meetings/Am. Soc. of Agricultural Engineers USA am2003/index.html

27 Jul- Ensuring a Safe Food Supply for East Lansing, [email protected] Aug the Global Community Michigan, USA29 Jul- InforAg 2003: 6th Information Indianapolis, Indiana, www.farmresearch.com/infoag1 Aug Agriculture Conference USA9-13 Aug American Phytopathological Charlotte, North [email protected]; www.scisoc.org

Society Annual Meeting Carolina, USA19-22 Aug ICAS 3rd International Convention Singapore [email protected];

of Asia Scholars www.fas.nus.edu.sg/icas37-9 Sep 2003 World Fertilizer Conference Boston, [email protected]; www.tfi.org

Massachusetts, USA15-19 Sep Phosphate Fertilizer Production Belgium [email protected]; [email protected];

Technology Workshop www.ifdc.org23 Sep-2 Oct ComBio 2003 Victoria, Australia [email protected] Oct International Conference on Sust- Skiathos, Greece www.wessex.ac.uk/conferences/

ainable Planning & Development 2003/planning03/index.html12-15 Oct 2003 International Conference on Houston, Texas, USA [email protected]

Agriculture Science and Technology13-24 Oct Fertilizer Marketing Management Vietnam [email protected]; [email protected];

www.ifdc.org26-30 Oct Entomological Society of America Cincinnati, Ohio, USA [email protected]; www.entsoc.org

Annual Meeting

FOOD FOR PEACEThe congress “From the Green Revolution to theGene Revolution” will take place in Bologna, Italy,on 28-31 May. Scheduled speakers and theirtopics include: N. Borlaug, Texas A&M University(Feeding a world of 10 billion people: our 21stcentury challenge); M. Swaminathan, TheSwaminathan Foundation (Towards an evergreenrevolution); G. Khush, University of California,Davis, and former IRRI principal plant breeder(Green revolution: the way forward); M. Gale,John Innes Centre and IRRI board member(Comparative mapping in cereals); J. Bennett,IRRI senior molecular biologist (Proteomics:what problems can we tackle in cropimprovement?); I. Potrykus, Swiss FederalInstitute of Technology (Golden crops and ironfortification). For details, visit www.avenuemedia.it/linkCONG/Green-Gene/prog.html.

RURAL DEVELOPMENT TRAININGThe International Centre for developmentoriented Research in Agriculture (ICRA) trainingin interdisciplinary team work for participatoryrural development takes place in English, 12Jan.-23 July 2004, in Wageningen, Netherlands;in French, 19 Jan.-30 July 2004, in Montpellier,France. PhD/MSc degree (formation univer-sitaire, Bac+5) required; age under 40 (forfellowships). Deadline: 1 July 2003. For details:(English) [email protected]; (French)[email protected]. Web: www.icra-edu.org.

PESTICIDE FORUMThe 7th International HCH and Pesticides Forum,on 5-7 June in Kiev, Ukraine, is a technical forumthat aims to find solutions to the problems arisingfrom the production and application of HCH(hexachlorocyclohexane) and other pesticides.For details contact Valentyna Pildisnyuk([email protected]) or visit www.hchforum.com/index.php.

BIOTHAILAND 2003The National Center for Genetic Engineering andBiotechnology (BIOTEC) will organize Bio-Thailand 2003: Technology for Life on 17-20 Julyin Pattaya, Thailand. It will feature a trade show,business partnering and scientific meetings. Fordetails email biothailand2003@ biotec.or.th orvisit http://biothailand.biotec.or.th.

PLANT BREEDING SYMPOSIUMThe Arnel R. Hallauer International Symposiumon Plant Breeding will take place on 17-22August in Mexico City. For information contactJulien de Meyer, [email protected]. Web:www.cimmyt.cgiar.org/Research/Maize/symposium/breeding_0803.htm.

MODERN RICE FARMINGThe International Conference on Modern RiceFarming will take place on 14-16 October at AlorSetar, Kedah Darul Aman, Malaysia. Co-organizedby the Malaysian Agricultural Research andDevelopment Institute, IRRI, Muda AgriculturalDevelopment Authority and Malaysian PlantProtection Society, the conference will consider abroad range of topics, from land leveling tomarketing. For details visit www.mardi.my.

2003 IRRI GROUP TRAINING COURSES (SELECTED TENTATIVE LISTING)

Course/VenueDuration Target Date Coordinator(s)/

(wk) Asst. CoordinatorRodent Management 3 19 May-6 June G. Singleton/K. HeongTwo-Week Rice Production Training Course 2 Aug V. BalasubramanianWater Management, for Philippines only 1 13-17 Oct B. BoumanGenetic Engineering and Nutrition 1 May S. Datta

Improvement in RiceRice Breeding Course 2 11-29 Aug G. AtlinScientific Writing and Presentation 1 12-16 May A. ArboledaIntensive English 1 Course (after office hours) 12 7 Jul-26 Sep A. ArboledaIntensive English 2 Course (after office hours) 3 10-28 Nov A. ArboledaIntro to SAS Version 8 for Windows 1 2-6 June G. McLaren/V. BartolomeIntro to IRIS for Plant Breeders Training 1 11-15 Aug G. McLaren/V. BartolomeAdvanced Experimental Design 1 10-14 Nov G. McLaren/V. Bartolome

For details, email [email protected].


The most recent World FoodSummit, in 1996, set the targetof halving by 2015 the number

of people who go to bed hungry. Suchrapid progress will require povertyreduction worldwide, but especially inAsia. Despite substantial progress inmany Asian countries over the pastfew decades (Figure 1), Asia is stillhome to most of the world’s poor.

The number of poor in rice-producing Asia1 is nearly three timesthat of sub-Saharan Africa, the secondlargest locus of poverty (Figure 2). Tosome extent, Asia has more poorpeople than Africa simply because itspopulation is much larger. Yet somekey indicators suggest that theincidence of poverty is worse in largeparts of Asia than in sub-SaharanAfrica. For example, stunting, wastingand underweight all afflict a largerproportion of children in south-central Asia (dominated by India,Pakistan and Bangladesh) than insub-Saharan Africa (Figure 3).Illuminating a similar picture of thestatus of women, the proportion ofseverely underweight adult women ismuch higher in Bangladesh and Nepalthan in Chad or Madagascar, the twocountries in sub-Saharan Africa withthe highest prevalence of underweightadult women (Figure 4).

It seems that well-publicizedprogress toward alleviating hungerand poverty in much of Asia hasblinded many donors – and the publicat large – to the poverty that remainsin the world’s largest continent.Certainly the level of officialdevelopment assistance (ODA)provided per poor person in rice-producing Asia is much lower than in

1Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India,Indonesia, Laos, Korea (North), Malaysia,Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka,Thailand and Vietnam.

Fight poverty where it livesby DAVID DAWE

Fig. 1. Number of rural poor in China, 1978-97. Fig. 4. Percentage of women (age 20–49) who areseverely underweight.

Fig. 3. Percentage of children suffering from stunting,underweight and wasting, year 2000, in sub-SaharanAfrica (SSA) and south-central Asia (SCA).

sub-SaharanAfrica (Figure 2).This conclusionholds evenexcluding fromthe calculationsIndia and China,who by sheer sizearguably threatento skew theresults. Adjustingthe figures totake into accounthow a lot of ODAfor Africa is inthe form ofgrants, while thatfor Asia is moreoften in the formof loans, showssub-Saharan Africa receiving fourtimes as much aid per poor person asdoes rice-producing Asia.

Africa urgently needs donor funds.But, in their zeal to set Africa aright,donors should not forget that both theincidence of poverty and its absolutenumbers remain very high in Asia. Itwill be impossible to achieve broadprogress in global poverty alleviationunless Asia receives due attention.

For more rice facts, visit www.riceweb.org/ricestat/index.htm.

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Adefining moment in the history of biology was theelucidation of the laws of genetics by GregorMendel, whose work was rediscovered and became

widely known in 1900. Ranking in the same category acentury later must be the announcement of completegenome sequences, notably of humans and the plantArabidopsis. Rice has now joined this exalted company withthe announcement on 18 December 2002 of the completionof a high-quality draft sequence of the rice genome.

Rice geneticists labored for most of the 20th centuryto identify and map rice genes. The work hastenedimmensely with the advent ofmolecular markers in the 1990s.However, these painstaking effortsresulted in a map location for perhapsa few hundred major genes and asimilar number of genetic locicontrolling quantitative traits, only ahandful of which were characterized atthe DNA level. Suddenly, we nowpossess detailed sequences of anestimated 50,000 genes that regulatethe rice plant’s development.

Parallel to this stunning progressin molecular biology are similaradvances in our ability to introducegenes into plants directly as DNA. The area planted totransgenic crops rose from nil in 1995 to over 50 millionha in 2001, mostly in North America. Transgenic rice isunder evaluation in several countries, and we should expectcommercial products to become available within a fewyears.

One question these trends frequently raise is, “What isthe future of conventional plant breeding?” First, let me pointout that “conventional plant breeding” is a misnomer. Plantbreeders continually reevaluate their approaches and haveadopted a wide range of tools to make their breeding effortsmore efficient. For the sake of discussion, we will defineconventional plant breeding as hybridization withoutinserting transgenes, followed by field selection.

It is true that in the early days of the biotechnologyrevolution one heard such comments as, “In the future, we’llproduce new plant varieties in the lab, with no need forfield work.” However, even the staunchest advocates of thenew biology would now dispute this misguided idea. A basicfact of applied genetic engineering is that all transgenic

manipulation involves conventionally bred varieties. Atransgenic plant is nothing more than a conventionally bredone with a novel gene inserted into it. While the insertedgene may add a very important feature, it remains a smallpart of the genetic makeup that determines the overallattributes of the plant.

We expect that the complete genome sequence of ricewill greatly improve our ability to breed new rice varieties.Our ultimate goal is to identify the function of each geneand subsequently the most favorable alleles (versions) ofthose genes, which we can then combine into superior rice

varieties. In the future, this technologywill allow us to trace all genes in ourrice breeding populations. As itbecomes cheaper and more widelyavailable, it should allow us to selectthe best plants from the breedingpopulations without extensive fieldtests. Breeders will be able to produceelite breeding lines by directlyselecting for specific combinations ofalleles at the molecular level. However,these elite lines will still requirethorough evaluation by breeders, otheragricultural scientists and, finally,farmers.

The challenges for rice breeders are immense. We havea long way to go before solving the problem of abiotic stresstolerance, for drought in particular. In the future, riceconsumers will want varieties that are not only tastier butalso more nutritious. Also assuming a more important rolewill be such environmental concerns as durable pestresistance, more efficient nutrient uptake, and the cultivars’response to global climate change and pollution. Geneticengineering and genomic tools will complement these ricebreeding efforts. While we may not anticipate break-throughs on a par with the yield gains of the GreenRevolution semidwarfs of the 1960s, we can certainly expectincremental progress on many fronts.

One could argue that at some point we will be able tocreate optimum genotypes entirely in the laboratory. Thisis an intriguing possibility, but I expect to see demand forseveral more generations of scientists versed in the classicalmethods of plant breeding. These breeders will have a rangeof new tools to facilitate their work, but they should notforget how to make crosses and grow field nurseries.

grain of truth

DAVID J. MACKILLIRRI Plant Breeder

Biotech won’t soon replace“conventional” breeding

A basic fact of applied genetic

engineering is that all

transgenic manipulation

involves conventionally bred

varieties

35Rice Today April 2003Note: Rice systems fall into categories in line with the categorizer’s focus — to a plant breeder according to conditions affecting rice plants and to an agricultural economistaccording to farmers’ livelihood options. The categories included here are intended to be broadly informative, not definitive or exhaustive.

Irrigated rice grows in bunded (embanked) fields with assured water suppliesand reliable drainage, allowing farmers to maintain shallow flooding of theirfields until the crop is nearly mature. The focus of innovation during theGreen Revolution, this highly productive system, permitting up to three ricecrops per year in tropical lowlands, provides more than three-quarters of theworld’s rice and is therefore central to global food security.

Flood-prone rice areas present a range of growing conditions in both coastaland inland environments that support more than 100 million Asians, despite highrisks and low yields. Some rice varieties tolerate being submerged for severaldays. Deepwater rice elongates or floats to survive long inundations. Coastalareas subject to tidal surges require rice varieties that tolerate high salt levels.Minerals that accumulate in waterlogged soils often render them infertile.

Aerobic rice grows as a dryland crop much like wheat, usually direct-seededin lowlands or favorable uplands that are rainfed or have supplementaryirrigation. With suitable varieties and properly managed inputs, farmers canachieve yields approaching those of conventionally irrigated fields. Aerobicrice is widely planted in rotation with pasture or soybean in Brazil and isincreasingly being adopted in China.

Rainfed lowland rice grows in bunded fields flooded by rainfall during atleast part of the cropping season. Farmers typically grow one rice crop peryear, followed by a minor crop if the remaining wet season permits. Somerainfed lowland areas are favorable and reliably productive, but most areprone to drought or flooding or both. Toxic soils, weed pressure, insect pestsand diseases are common problems.

Montane lowland rice grows in bunded fields on valley bottoms or steppedterraces cut into hillsides. This system, either rainfed or irrigated, is thepreferred way to grow rice in the mountains, but limited availability of suitableland means that many farmers don’t have access to enough lowland area tofeed their families. Typically, these farmers also grow upland rice to reduceor eliminate their rice deficit.

Upland rice grows as a rainfed dryland crop in permanent fields — whichcan be sustainable if rotated with other crops — or in shifting slash-and-burnsystems that become unsustainable, especially on hillsides, as populationpressure shortens the fallow periods needed for soil regeneration. With fewinputs, upland rice yields are very low but nevertheless critical to thehousehold food security of some of the poorest people in Asia.

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Rice Today Volume 1 number 2

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