Rice Today Volume 4 number 1

8/14/2019 Rice Today Volume 4 number 1

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ISSN 1655-5422

www.irri.org

International Rice Research Institute April 2005, Vol. 4 No. 1

Game of life

Farmers play gameswith scientists

Rice year wrap-upPutting rice back

on the map

A farm boy's taleRice leader heads home

Intensify to diversifySmarter rice growing helps Cambodian farmers


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contentsVol. 4, No. 1

International Rice Research InstituteDAPO Box 7777, Metro Maila, PhilippiesWeb (IRRI): www.irri.orgWeb (Library): http://ricelib.irri.cgiar.orgWeb (Riceweb): www.riceweb.org

Web (Rice Kowledge Bak): www.kowledgebak.irri.org

Rice Todayeditorialtelephoe (+63-2) 580-5600 or (+63-2) 844-3351 to 53, ext 2725;fax: (+63-2) 580-5699 or (+63-2) 845-0606; email: [email protected]

cover Leharne Fountain

publisher Duncan MacintosheditorAdam Barclayart director Juan Lazaro IVdesiger ad productio supervisor George Reyes

deputy editor Leharne Fountaincotributig editors Gene Hettel, Bill Hardyphoto researcherAileen Del Rosario-RondillaphotographerAriel Javellanacirculatio Al Benaventepriter Primex Printers, Inc.

Rice Todayis published by the Iteratioal Rice Research Istitute (IRRI), the worldsleadig iteratioal rice research ad traiig ceter. Based i the Philippies ad withofces in 11 other countries, IRRI is an autonomous, nonprot institution focused onimprovig the well-beig of preset ad future geeratios of rice farmers ad cosumers,particularly those with low icomes, while preservig atural resources. IRRI is oe of15 ceters fuded through the Cosultative Group o Iteratioal Agricultural Research(CGIAR), a associatio of public ad private door agecies. For more iformatio, visitthe CGIAR Web site (www.cgiar.org).

Resposibility for this publicatio rests with IRRI. Desigatios used i this publicatio

should ot be costrued as expressig IRRI policy or opiio o the legal status of aycoutry, territory, city or area, or its authorities, or the delimitatio of its frotiers orboudaries.

Rice Todaywelcomes commets ad suggestios from readers. Potetial cotributorsare encouraged to query rst, rather than submit unsolicited materials. Rice Todayassumes o resposibility for loss or damage to usolicited submissios, which shouldbe accompanied by sufcient return postage.

Copyright Iteratioal Rice Research Istitute 2005

IntroducIng IrrI..4Proud.to.lead.the.way

donors corner..5Forging.partnerships.in.agricultural.research:.The.

Australian.Centre.or.International.Agricultural.Research.develops.solutions.to.the.problems..that.limit.productive.and.sustainable.agriculture

news ..6Rice.knowledge.helps.tsunami.recovery

ASEAN.nations.endorse.10-year,.3-point.plan

Robert.Zeigler.named.IRRI.director.general

New.research.alliance.to.help.fght.poverty

IRRI.wins.best.article.award

rIce In the news ..9Healing.wounds

Year.o.rice.dinner.startles.guests

Pros.and.cons.o.genetically.modifed..rice.in.China

What's.rich,.creamy,.delicious.and.weighs..75.tons?

IntensIfy to dIversIfy..12Smarter.rice.growing.gives.Cambodian.armers..

an.opportunity.to.try.new.crops.and.gain..more.income.

the tale of a texas farm boy ..18Ronald.P.Cantrell,.the.Texas.arm.boy.made..

good,.heads.home.ater.6.years.at.the.helm..o.the.International.Rice.Research.Institute

a day on the farm ..22Home.to.research.that.helps.eed.the.worlds..

poor,.200.hectares.o.land.in.the.northern.

Philippines.might.just.be.Asias.most..valuable.real.estate

the game of lIfe ..25A.resh.approach.to.the.challenge.o.sharing.

agricultural.resources.has.rice.armers..playing.games.with.scientists

a dry vIsIon ..28As.Asias.irrigation.water.becomes.increasingly..

scarce,.researchers.are.developing.rice..varieties.that.can.thrive.in.dry.conditions

how to fInd needles In haystacks ..30The.relatively.new.science.o.bioinormatics..

is.helping.agricultural.scientists.accelerate..research.that.was.once.prohibitively..time-consuming.or.even.impossible

spi i: .32InternatIonal year of rIceThe.year.that.put.rice.back.on.the.map.A.grainul.year.or.development.organizations

PeoPle..36Hybrid.rice.expert.bags.multiple.awards.

Keeping.up.with.IRRI.sta

Partners.in.progress

rIce facts.37

Do.lower.rice.prices.help.the.poor?Lower.rice.prices.arent.necessarily.bad..

news.or.armers

graIn of truth ..38Ups.and.downs:.private-sector.investment..


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InTRODuCInG IRRI

Proud to leadthe way

The world was a terrifyingplace in 1952-53. Theperiod saw the rst use ofpopulation explosion in

Time magazine and a cruel irony therst detonation, over the Pacic Ocean, of

a hydrogen bomb. It also brought acrossthe Pacic two senior Rockefeller Founda-tion agriculturalists to study how to end

2 decades of stagnating rice yields in Asia.By 1960, the population explosion was acover story in Time, and the InternationalRice Research Institute (IRRI) was estab-lished in the Philippines to shore up globalfood security in the face of exponentialpopulation growth.

Along with the other midwife of theGreen Revolution, the Mexico-basedInternational Maize and Wheat Improve-ment Center, IRRI was a prototype for aglobal network of research centers that,since 1971, have found common purpose

within the Consultative Group on Interna-

tional Agricultural Research. With morethan US$400 million in annual fund-ing from its 63 cosponsors and memberstates and organizations in particularthe World Bank and developed countries

in North America, Europe andthe Asia-Pacic the 15-centergroup represents the worldslargest investment in mobiliz-ing science to generate publicgoods for poor farm com-munities.

Since IRRIs release in1966 of the rst modernrice variety, the insti-

tute has led the way indeveloping improvedrice cultivars and other

agricultural technologiesto benet Asias 200 million rice

farmers and the billions of rice consumers

who depend on them for reliable, afford-able supplies of their staple food. IRRIs

work, on its research campus at Los Baosand across Asia in collaboration with thenational partners it has nurtured, hasgreatly contributed to the near doubling of

the Asian rice harvest since 1970.Today, the institute combines rice-

biodiversity conservation, gene discovery

and plant breeding with natural resourcemanagement, integrated pest manage-ment, agricultural engineering andpostharvest technologies, and social andpolicy studies to develop ecologicallyand economically sustainable strategiesto reverse a troubling new stagnationin rice-yield improvement. This trendoccurs in the contexts of slowing popula-tion growth and Asian farmers enjoyingan average yield more than double that oftheir parents and grandparents at IRRIsfounding. It nevertheless threatens to

undermine the indispensable agricultural

foundation of development, thus sabotag-ing the prospects of todays 600 millionpoor in rice-producing Asia and a largeportion of the billions to be born in theseveral decades before the global popula-tion nally stabilizes.

People at IRRI take pride in howthey, their colleagues and their prede-cessors going back to the shell-shockedmiddle of the 20th century have helpedto make the world a more prosper-ous, safe and hopeful place. But muchremains to be done to achieve the UnitedNations Millennium Development Goalsand so alleviate hunger, want, prevent-

able disease, ignorance, inequality andenvironmental degradation. With contin-ued support, IRRIs 1,000 scientists, ad-ministrators, support staff and contract

workers will contribute much more thantheir share.


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DOnORS CORnER

Rice TodayApril 2005

Forging partnershipsin agricultural research

by P e t e r C o re

The Australian Centre for Inter-national Agricultural Research(ACIAR) contributes to the

Australian Governments OfcialDevelopment Assistance programby forging partnerships in agricul-tural research and development.

The key to ACIARs operationsand success has been partneringwith agricultural research organiza-tions, including the InternationalRice Research Institute (IRRI) and

other Consultative Group on Interna-tional Agricultural Research (CGIAR)centers, to develop solutions to theproblems and barriers that limit pro-ductive and sustainable agriculture.

ACIAR works with IRRI in twoways: we provide Australias corefunding contribution to CGIARcenters, and we commission IRRIto undertake specic projects.

In 2003-04, Australia contribut-ed US$650,000 in core funds to IRRIout of a total of $4.2 million allocated

in core funding to CGIAR centers.Another $3.5 million was distributedamong the centers as project-specicfunding, based on the comparativeresearch strengths each offeredin addressing issues that matchedAustralias regional priorities.

Project-specic funding aims tobuild three-way linkages by connect-ing the specialist research skills andknowledge of CGIAR centers withAustralian and developing-countryagricultural research institutes, ulti-

mately breaking down barriers thathamper agricultural productivity.

ACIARs annual budget of ap-proximately $38 million is com-paratively small in a global context.Our activities are therefore carefullytargeted, recognizing that sustainableand environmentally benign pro-ductivity enhancements can unlockagricultural potential. This remainsa proven avenue out of poverty for

the rural poor if not for todaysfarmers, then for their children.

ACIARs project activities, and itssupport for IRRI and other CGIARcenters, are based on both formal andinformal consultations with part-ner countries an approach thatreects ACIARs mandate to solvethe problems of developing-countryagriculture through partnershipsin research and development.

Every 4 years, ACIAR consultswith major partner countries to setbroad priorities, from which moredetailed annual priorities are set,and outlined in ACIARs AnnualOperational Plan. Projects, devel-oped against these annual priori-ties, harness research and extensionexpertise to overcome obstacles tosustainable productivity increases.

By involving developing-countryagricultural research institutions and,where appropriate, CGIAR centers

including IRRI, projects deliverapplicable results as well as buildscientic capacity, creating home-grown and home-owned solutions.

ACIAR focuses on delivering thesesolutions in the Asia-Pacic region,home to more than half the worldspopulation and almost two-thirds ofthe worlds poor. Many of these poorhave not beneted as much as theyshould have from the Green Revolu-

tion. While global food productionhas more than matched populationgrowth in the past three decades,agricultural productivity amongthe rural poor remains low.

ACIAR works to raise pro-ductivity in a range of areas. TheACIAR-funded Seeds of Life projectmatches crops to growing conditionsby tapping the genetic resourcesof ve CGIAR centers, includingIRRI, to introduce improved and

better-suited crop varieties to theedgling nation of East Timor.Another sustained research

effort, supported by ACIAR and ledby IRRI, is developing so-calledapomictic hybrid rice varietiesthat reproduce asexually, arehigh-yielding, and whose seeds aregenetically identical to those of theparent plant, overcomingthe high cost and inexibilityof hybrid seed production.

ACIAR-IRRI collaboration is

also helping the cropping systemsof Laos andCambodia. Research-ers are introducing plant breedingstrategies for lowland rice, intensi-fying rice-based cropping systemsin rainfed lowlands, developingdirect-seeding technology, increas-ing the productivity of dry-seasonirrigated rice, and developingagroecological maps for Laos.

ACIARs investment in globalagricultural research and develop-ment is carefully targeted. This

focus is reected in our investmentin, and support of, rice research. Byworking with stakeholders in settingand addressing research priori-ties, ACIAR ensures that benetswill continue to ow to the ruralpoor of the Asia-Pacic region.

IRRI has been, and remains,vital to ACIARs efforts to deliver re-search results that improve the liveli-hoods of the people most in need.

Mr. Core is Director o the Australian Centre or

International Agricultural Research.

aciar

by Peter Core


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Briefy Briefy Briefy


Establishig trustThe Global Crop Diversity Trust, set up tohelp conserve forever the planets agricul-tural biodiversity, is now an independent

international organization. To be recognizedunder international law, the trust required12 signatories from ve world regions. On21 October, Sweden, as well as pledging 50million kroners (US$7.3 million), became therequired 12th signatory, joining Cape Verde,

Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Mali, Mo-rocco, Samoa, Syria, Tonga and Togo.

new board membersEmerlinda Roman,Elizabeth Woods andTony Fischerhave been appointed to IRRIs

Board of Trustees. ProfessorRoman becameex ofcio member when she was appointed19th President of the University of thePhilippines in February. Dr. Woods, execu-

tive director of research and developmentstrategies at the Australian Department of

Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, andDr. Fischer, South Asia program adviserfor the Australian Centre for International

Agricultural Research, assumed their boardduties on 1 January.

Commuicatio iovatioEighty scientists from organizations includ-ing the World Bank, IRRI and the Foodand Agriculture Organization of the United

Nations gathered on 24-26 January at theInnovations in Communication for RuralExtension workshop in Ho Chi Minh City,

Vietnam. Supported by the U.K. Depart-

ment for International Development, theworkshop explored new innovations in com-munication to improve rural extension.

Lastig graisIRRI has developed a farmer-friendly superstorage bag that allows cereal grains to be

safely stored for extended periods. Madefrom laminated, three-layer plastic, theSuper bag is a liner used inside a normalstorage bag. The impermeable middle layerkeeps both water and oxygen out (regular

Rice knowledge helps tsunami recovery

MIRACULOUSLY UNHARMED: Sri Lankan rice armer Mr. Farookstands at the edge o his eld in the east coast town oNintavur, rom where he was swept away by the Indian Oceantsunami on 2 December. The waves, which reached the top othe palm trees behind him, carried Mr. Farook inland or nearlya kilometer and dumped salt water and sand over his arm.

MarkBell

Salt-tolerant rice varieties have beenshipped to communities in severalcountries devastated by the Indian Oceantsunamis of December 26. The tsunamisaffected more than 1 million hectares ofrice growing land an area that suppliesfood for at least 30 million people. The

shipments, part of a coordinated responseby agricultural research institutes includ-ing IRRI, aimed to quickly reestablish foodproduction in the worst hit areas and helpaffected communities rapidly regain foodself-sufciency.

IRRI experts are also studying therice production problems that farmersare encountering in the battered areas ofIndonesia, India and Sri Lanka. Ofcialsin Myanmar, Bangladesh and Thailandreported that their main rice-growing areas

were mostly unaffected. The institutes RiceKnowledge Bank, an electronic repository

of rice-related training and technology in-formation, is providing essential advice ongrowing rice in the aftermath of the tsunami(www.knowledgebank.irri.org/Tsunamis-

AndRice/default.htm).The salty waters that surged into coast-

al rice elds destroyed crops, equipmentand seed stocks, killed farm animals, and

damaged storage and processingfacilities. The invasion of salt

water can affect rice productionin several ways, including directcrop losses, soil damage via ero-sion or salt contamination, andstorage losses.

Many of those affected bythe tsunami depended on localagriculture not just for food butalso for their livelihoods, and riceobviously played a particularlyimportant role in many regions.Its essential to the success of anyrecovery effort that agriculture inthe region gets back on its feet asquickly as possible, IRRI DeputyDirector General for ResearchRen Wang said.

Dr. Wang estimated that IRRI had ac-cess to more than 40 different rice varieties

that tolerate salty conditions, and could beused either immediately by farmers in suit-able areas or in breeding programs to adaptto salty conditions local varieties that werealready popular with farmers.

IRRI is working closely with its 14 sistercenters of the Consultative Group on Inter-national Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to

ASEAN nations endorse IRRI 10-year, 3-point plan

IRRI has formed a major new alliance withthe worlds largest and most important as-sociation of rice-producing nations. The newpartnership follows an invitation from the10-nation Association of Southeast AsianNations (ASEAN) for representatives fromIRRI to attend last years 26th Annual Meet-

ing of the ASEAN Ministers on Agricultureand Forestry (AMAF) in Myanmar in Octo-

ber. Coming after ASEAN agreed to establishformal relationships with IRRI in August,the gathering endorsed a 10-year, 3-pointplan presented by Myanmar that focused onthree major rice production challenges fac-ing Asia water shortages, global warmingand inadequate human resources.

The AMAF urged international donorsto strengthen their support for IRRI and

released a statement inviting IRRI and otherconcerned agencies of ASEAN to developa detailed blueprint for the plan and coor-dinate its implementation to minimize theimpact of these major threats to ASEAN rice

production.The ASEAN countries are Brunei Darus-

salam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailandand Vietnam. Plus 3 nations China, Koreaand Japan also attended the meeting.

help tsunami-affected nations recover theiragricultural productivity. Other CGIAR

centers involved in the effort include fourinstitutes based in the worst-hit countries:the International Water Management In-stitute in Sri Lanka, the WorldFish Centerin Malaysia, the Center for InternationalForestry Research in Indonesia, and theInternational Crops Research Institute forthe Semi-Arid Tropics in India.


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IRRI and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYTby its Spanish acronym) have forged a new

Alliance aimed at boosting internationalefforts to ght rural poverty and strengthen

food security in the developing world.Because rice, maize and wheat areall cereals, the two institutes believe thatresearch on the crops sustainable develop-ment and use can be better coordinatedthrough a strong Alliance. The three staplesprovide 60 percent of global food needs an-

plastic is only effective against water). Thebags, which can double seed life, help farmerscontrol grain moisture levels, maintain seedgermination and viability for a much longer

period, control grain pests without usingchemicals, and improve grain quality.

new evirometal coucilThe IRRI Environmental Council was estab-lished in November to ensure the long-termimplementation, continued development

and success of the IRRI Environmental Agenda. The council is responsible forthe implementation of the Environmental

Agenda launched at the World Rice Re-search Conference in Japan, also in Novem-

ber and will be the main advisory body forsetting the institutes environmental guide-lines and policies for all activities related toresearch, operations and interactions with

the local community.

Gates moey for BagladeshThe Bangladesh Rural Advancement Com-mittee (BRAC), founded by IRRI Boardof Trustees member Fazle Hasan Abed,received the $1 million 2004 Gates Award

for Global Health, funded by the Bill andMelinda Gates Foundation. BRAC is cred-ited with improving the health and welfareof tens of millions of destitute Bangladeshis,and has become a global model for rural

development groups. Dr. Abed also receivedthe 2004 United Nations DevelopmenProgram Mahbub ul Haq Award for Outstanding Contribution to Human Develop

ment, in recognition of his commitmento empowering the poor and his successin providing opportunities for women andother marginalized groups in Bangladesh.

Rice-wheat project begisThe project Enhancing farmers income

and livelihoods through integrated crop andresource management in the rice-wheat system in South Asia, sponsored by the AsianDevelopment Bank, commenced in DhakaBangladesh, in February. The 3-year project

An internationally respected plantpathologist with more than 20years experience in agricultural re-search in the developing world has

been named as IRRIs next directorgeneral. Robert Zeigler, 54, takes overfrom Ronald Cantrell, who retired in

December (See The tale of a Texas farm boy, pages 18-21). The Illinoisnative was scheduled to assume hisnew duties on 1 April.

Dr. Zeigler earned his Ph.D. inplant pathology from Cornell University in 1982. After working oncassava at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT),he spent time in Burundi as a technical adviser for the nations maizeprogram before returning to CIAT as a senior staff plant patholo-gist, ultimately taking over as the head of its rice program. In 1992,Dr. Zeigler moved to IRRI, where he led the Rainfed Lowland RiceResearch Program and the Irrigated Rice Research Program. After

6 years, he left the institute to become head of the Department ofPlant Pathology and director of the Plant Biotechnology Center at

Kansas State University in the U.S., before working in Mexico asdirector of the Generation Challenge Program of the ConsultativeGroup on International Agricultural Research. IRRI Deputy Di-rector General for Partnerships William Padolina served as actingdirector general following Dr. Cantrells departure.

Robert Zeigler named IRRI director general

The institutes board chairs, Keijiro

Otsuka of IRRI and Alexander McCalla oCIMMYT, said the Alliance will focus on mo

bilizing and applying science for increasedimpact in the developing world.

The process should lead to a continuous evolution toward even closer integra

tion of certain research programs to betterachieve the missions of both centers,Drs. Otsuka and McCalla said in a jointstatement, adding that the Alliance wouldenhance the institutes partnerships withthe national agricultural research systemsof developing countries.

nually, and cover more than 70 percent ofthe planets productive cropping land.

The boards of trustees of IRRI and the

Mexico-based CIMMYT met on 7-9 Janu-ary in Shanghai, China, to identify research

priorities for the new Alliance. They selectedfour areas intensive crop productionsystems in Asia; the formation of cerealsinformation units; training and knowledge

banks for rice, maize and wheat; and climatechange research directed at adapting thethree crops to global changes.

New research Alliance to help ght poverty

DURING NEPALS International Year o Rice celebrations on 1 December,the Minister o Agriculture and Cooperatives, Hom Nath Dahal, inauguratedthe Nepal-IRRI oce in Kathmandu. The National Agricultural ResearchCouncil (NARC) and IRRI exchanged a Memorandum o Agreement regardingthe operation o the Nepal-IRRI oce and the Nepalese version o IRRIs

electronic rice training and extension service, the Rice Knowledge Bank.NARC Executive Director D. S. Pathik (center) is seen here signing thememorandum, as IRRI Senior Scientist Sushil Pandey (left) watches, alongwith NARC and Ministry o Agriculture senior sta.

c.

zeigler


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led by IRRI Senior Scientist J.K. Ladha, isdesigned to improve farmers income andlivelihood through technologies identiedfor dissemination and promotion in the

rice-wheat cropping system covering theIndo-Gangetic Plains in Bangladesh, India,Nepal, and Pakistan.

Arizoa OryzaMore than 240 rice researchers convergedon the University of Arizona on 15-17

November for the 2nd International Sym-posium on Rice Functional Genomics.Participants presented the latest researchresults on the genome sequence of rice andexplored ways of discovering the function

of rices 50,000 genes. IRRI attendeesincluded bioinformatics specialist RichardBruskiewich, plant breeder Darshan Brarand plant pathologist Hei Leung.

Regioal hub for LaosAt the Lao-IRRI Rice Research and Train-ing Project annual meeting in Vientiane on27 January, IRRI announced that it willestablish a regional hub in Laos to boostthe institutes commitment to that country

and regions beyond the projects auspices.National Agricultural and Forestry ResearchInstitute ofcials and Ty Phommasack, viceminister of the Lao Ministry of Agricultureand Forestry, welcomed the development.

The Lao-IRRI Project, which started in 1990,has substantially contributed to researchinfrastructure, national research capacityand national self-sufciency in rice.

Great wall of riceGlutinous (sticky) rice has been revealed asa secret ingredient used by ancient Chinese

builders to strengthen their constructions.During recent maintenance work on thecity wall of Xian, capital of Shaanxi prov-

ince, workers found that plaster remnantson ancient bricks were difcult to remove.Chemical and physical tests showed thatthe plaster contained glutinous rice, whichevidently helped make a better mortar.

The CGIAR Science and Communication Awards were presented at the annualgeneral meeting of IRRIs parent organiza-tion, the Consultative Group on Interna-tional Agricultural Research (CGIAR), heldin Mexico City on 25-29 October.

The Outstanding Scientific Article

award went to a team of IRRI scientists led by Marta Vasconselos (pictured at rightwith, from left, Deputy Director Generalfor Research Ren Wang, Director GeneralRonald Cantrell and Director for ProgramPlanning and Coordination Mike Jackson).The IRRI teams article, Enhanced ironand zinc accumulation in transgenic ricewith the ferritin gene was published in

Plant Science and shows the potential ofusing rice to deliver improved nutrition

IRRI researchers win best article award

QUALITY CENTER: Plant nutrition

expert Robin Graham (right),rom the University o Adelaide,and ormer IRRI cereal chemistBienvenido Juliano (left) cut theribbon at the 1 December openingceremony o IRRIs new Grain Qualityand Nutrition Research Center(GQNRC) while GNQRC Head MelissaFitzgerald and IRRI Director GeneralRonald Cantrell look on. The newcenter will help IRRI develop ricevarieties o improved visual, sensoryand nutritional quality. The GQNRCwill also be a training hub, wherescientists rom national agricultural

research systems can learn the mostup-to-date, ecient and cost-eective methods o evaluating ricequality and nutrition. Read more inQuality time on pages 2-29 oRiceTodayVol. 3 No. 4.

to millions of poor rice consumers. IRRIwas also represented in the King BaudouinAward, won by the Rice-Wheat Consortiumof the Indo-Gangetic Plains for pioneeringresource-conserving technologies in South

Asias breadbasket.

Meeting highlights included Farm-ers Dialogue an innovative approachto reaching out to farmers in developingcountries and a ministerial roundtable

where Ministers from Colombia, CtedIvoire, Mexico and Venezuela, plus twoprivate sector representatives, discussedhow public-private partnerships could spurrural innovation and benet poor farmers.

In a speech delivered by AgricultureMinister Javier Usabiaga, Mexican Presi-dent Vicente Fox pledged Mexicos sup-port for rural development and expressedcondence in the countrys long-standingpartnership with the CGIAR. Other speakersincluded CGIAR Chair Ian Johnson, WorldBank Chief Economist and Vice PresidentFrancois Bourguignon, and CGIAR ScienceCouncil Chair and World Food Prize laure-ate Per Pinstrup-Andersen.

aileendelrosario-rondilla

officialphoto


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RICE In THE nEWS

9Rice TodayApril 2005

Last Decembers devastating tsunamisstruck a double blow for many rice-growing communities. Besides the humantoll, the waves brought salt and sand intocoastal rice elds, destroying crops, killingfarm animals, wrecking farm machinery andobliterating seed stocks. Seeds of salt-toler-

ant rice varieties have already been sent toMalaysia and more assistance is planned forother affected areas (seeNews on page 6).

The need to replace seeds and intro-duce new varieties is fueled not only bynatural disaster, but also by war, whichin many countries has resulted in thecomplete loss of varieties of rice and othercrops. A new book, released by IRRIs par-ent organization, the Consultative Groupon International Agricultural Research(CGIAR), examines its constituent centers

roles in rebuilding agriculture in countriesaffected by conict and natural disasters

over the past 30 years. Authored by MarkWinslow and Surendra Varma of the Inter-national Center for Agricultural Researchin Dry Areas, the book, Healing Wounds,

was featured in the January 22 edition ofNew Scientistmagazine (www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg18524831.000).

The article, by Fred Pearce, recountsseveral examples of the effects of conicton agriculture, including the rescue of Iraqsblack box. The box contained seeds fromthe countrys main seed bank, which was

Healing wounds destroyed following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. There aresimilar tales from Afghanistan,Rwanda and the Democratic

Republic of Congo. Pearce alsomentions IRRIs role in the re-patriation of rice varieties col-lected from Cambodia months

before the Khmer Rouge took

over (see The burning of therice on page 15). But hundredsof varieties have been lost for-ever. Pearce quotes an IRRIstudy that found that in onedistrict, the 15 most promi-nent and adapted deep-waterrice varieties were all lost. Hepoints out that, along with therice, traditional knowledgeabout what to plant where alsodisappeared on a catastrophic

scale.The Cambodian experi-

ence also made the Cana-dian airwaves. Former IRRIscientist Harry Nesbitt wasinterviewed in February onthe Canadian Broadcasting Corporationradio program, The Current, about IRRIsrole in helping restore Cambodias riceindustry after the Khmer Rouge fell frompower. On 10 January, the same programinterviewed IRRI Senior Scientist AbdelbagiIsmail about the effect of the Indian Oceantsunami on rice production in South and

Southeast Asia. Dr. Ismail estimated thatthe tsunami affected more than 1 millionhectares of rice land, which had previously provided food for at least 30 millionpeople. He also discussed the short- andlong-term damage to rice production. See

Healing Wounds online at www.cgiar.org/publications/index.html.

Global warming and rice still a hot issue

A paper co-authored by IRRI scientists has made

Discover Magazines list o the top 100 science

stories o 2004. The list, in the magazines

January issue, had Rice yields decline with

higher night temperature rom global warming

at number 68. Written by a research team rom

IRRI, China and the United States, the study

was led by IRRI crop physiologist Shaobing

Peng. The paper, published in the 6 Julyissue o PNAS (www.pnas.org/cgi/content/

ull/101/27/9971), reported that feld studies

conducted at IRRI confrmed predictions rom

theoretical studies that global warming will

make rice crops less productive.

Citing the IRRI-led study as evidence that

global warming could hurt ood production, a

story by Robert Pore in the 23 January issue o

The Independentreports on work by the United

States Agricultural Research Service. The study

Saving time and money in India

Regional Indian-language newspapers ran

more than 20 articles on a project to develop

and introduce direct-seeding technology and

integrated weed management to major rice

producing areas o India. English-language

national newspapers carrying the story

included The Times of India and the Hindustan

Times. The papers reported that IRRI weed

scientist David Johnson, along with Martin

Mortimer rom the University o Liverpools

School o Biological Sciences, visited feld

trials o direct-seeding and weed managemensystems that could help rice armers save

water, time, labor and money.

Swiss rice

Even the Swiss have been celebrating

International Year o Rice, with the new

Website www.swissino.org visiting Ticino in

December to fnd out about rice growing, Swiss

style. Ticinos Mediterranean climate is idea

or the cultivation o the risotto rice Loto.

suggests that as atmospheric carbon dioxide

levels rise, crops may need more nitrogen

and thereore more ertilizer to grow.

Harvest shortfalls still a concern

Poor harvests last year, particularly in China,

prompted coverage o the issue in major

newspapers across the world. The New York

Times andAsian Wall Street Journal are among

the publications that published eatures

suggesting causes or declining harvests and

soaring prices. IRRI has warned about the

threat o ongoing shortages as rice prices haveundergone a 40% price increase in the past

year. Website Oryza (www.oryza.com) reported

IRRI Director General Ron Cantrell as saying

that Asias ability to eed itsel cannot be

taken or granted. In addition to demand-

increases rom a rapidly growing population,

Dr. Cantrell identifed our other actors that

pose threats to the supply o rice water

shortages, global warming, scarcity o rice

armers and decreasing area planted to rice.

Also...


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RICE In THE nEWS

10 Rice TodayApril 2005

Pros and cons of genetically modied rice in China

Genetically modied (GM) rice in Chinahas received widespread media cover-age, with articles in major magazines The

Economist, Science and Newsweek, plusa swathe of local and other internationalstories. Following Chinas Ministry of Agri-culture announcement last December thatthe country would ofcially begin safetyevaluation of GM rice, debate has ragedabout the potential benets and risks ofthe commercialization of GM rice in Chinaand elsewhere.

Some reports have surmised that, withpressure mounting on Beijing to boost do-mestic grain production and farmer income,China the worlds largest rice producerand consumer could release GM rice asearly as next year. The 18 November issue ofThe Economistsuggests that China is ready

to go GM because it consumes most of therice it produces. The proportion of rice thatChina trades is small enough, says the maga-zine, that Chinese growers and consumers

stand to gain much more than the countrymight lose in exports to GM-wary nations.Moreover, China is technically advanced inGM research and, according to a survey bythe Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy,there is relatively high consumer support.TheEconomistarticle, along with a featureon Chinas GM-rice issues in the 20 De-cember issue ofNewsweek (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6700914/site/newsweek/),

proposes that if China does push aheadsuccessfully with commercialization, itcould spur other developing countries withrelatively advanced research systems, suchas India and Brazil, to do the same.

More recently, news agency Reutersposted a 28 February report quoting CliveJames, chairman and founder of the In-ternational Service for the Acquisition of

Agri-biotech Applications, a group thatadvocates biotechnology as a means to helpend global hunger. Dr. James suggestedthat China could be ready to commercialize

GM rice within 2 years and, once they do,it will move throughout Asia. Its the mostimportant food crop in the world. Theyve

worked on this very carefully and hadlarge-scale eld trials for several years, hereportedly said.

However, following a Chinese biosafetycommittee meeting in December, Chinadenied it is denitely gearing up for the com-mercial release of GM varieties. On 2 De-

cember, Chinese news agency Xinhua statedthat there were no genetically modied rice

varieties in China being issued with safetycerticates. The 10 December issue ofSci-ence reported Fang Xiangdong, director ofthe China Ministry of Agricultures Ofceof Biosafety, as saying that no applicationhas been approved or rejected so far. The

journal added that if China does delay theintroduction of GM rice, a blight-resistantGM rice variety now undergoing eld trialsin the Philippines could be the rst in the

world to win approval.

PUBLIC RICE: PLoS Biology, a journal published by the Public Library oScience (PLoS), ocused on rice in its February 200 issue. The GenomesofOryza sativa: A History of Duplications, by Jun Yu, Jun Wang, Wei Lin,Songgang Li, Heng Li, et al., compares the DNA sequences o the indica and

japonica subspecies o rice, and reveals that duplication o genes has stronglyinfuenced the evolution o other grass genomes. The article is accompaniedby a synopsis, Rice Genome Approaches Completion, written to give non-experts insight into the works signicance. All works published in PLoSBiology are open access, and reely available. See www.plosbiology.org.

Englands Telegraph carried on 26 November the story of a dinnerhosted by Tony Hall, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nationsfood agencies in Rome. Hall, in an effort to remind his diplomatguests of the realities of world hunger during International Yearof Rice, split diners into three groups, representing three levels of

wealth. The richest third received a delicious gourmet meal, themiddle class got rice and beans, while the poor guests were lockedoutside in the garden with a few handfuls of cold rice and a leaetthat explained they were representing the 60% of the worlds 6

billion people who struggle to nd each meal. The leaet alsoinformed the bemused guests that the rice would fail to stave offtheir hunger. Many refused to eat and were eventually let back infor their real dinner.

The Vietnam News Agency looked at International Year ofRice in the context of the history of rice production in Vietnam. The

report, by Huu Ngoc, stated that the rice year declaration greatlyinterests Vietnam, where 80% of the population lives in rural areasand essentially survives on rice farming, and also where during thedouble rule of the Japanese and the French in 1945, a famine tooka toll of 2 million lives.

Calling rice the web of life in Vietnam, the story notes thecountrys success after the policy ofdoi moi(renewal) was insti-tuted in 1986 to curb a prolonged economic crisis that lasted formany years, and to revive agriculture by giving farmers the fullscope of production.Doi moi, Ngoc adds, ended Vietnams peren-nial food shortage and helped turn it into the worlds third-largestrice exporter.

Washington Times reporter Takehiko Kambayashi interviewedInternational Rice Commission Executive Secretary Nguu Nguyenabout International Year of Rice 2004. The interview, which ran inthe papers 29 October issue, covered the years accomplishments,

the reason behind devoting a year to rice, and how to increaseEuropes and North Americas interest in rice issues.

Reality check for rice year dinner guests

photoByleiXu

andfangchen,

BeijinginstituteofgenoMics


11/40


Other publications raised concernsabout the environmental and human healthimplications of releasing GM rice. TheChina Daily said in a 13 December articlethat people should not be used as guineapigs with food they eat every day, and thatthe impact of genetically modied foodson human health, the environment and

biodiversity has not yet been thoroughlystudied under current levels of science and

technology.Meanwhile, the Food and Agricultural

Organization of the United Nations (FAO)has voiced its support for GM crops. At aconference in December, the FAO declaredthat biotechnology and hybrid strains could

be used by rice growers to reverse falling yields. In an 8 December report, Reuterscited Mahmoud Solh, FAO director of plantprotection and production, as saying, Thesuccessful mapping of the rice genomesequence offers still further opportunitiesto identify and characterize the genes and

biochemical pathways for increasing rice yield [...] and improving rice quality forconsumer preference.

However, in another Reuters story car-ried by the 28 October issue ofThe ManilaTimes, the FAO also urged governmentsto act with caution before giving the go-ahead to commercial planting of GM rice.He Changchui, FAO Asia-Pacic assistantdirector, reportedly said that governments

should undertake extensive risk assess-ment on food safety and study consumersentiment before giving approval, addingthat countries intending to commercializegenetically modied rice should go througha very strict, science-based analysis.

In further GM developments, an articlein the 10 February issue ofNature revealsthat scientists from CAMBIA, a researchcenter afliated with Charles Sturt Univer-sity in Canberra, Australia, have developednew ways to genetically modify plants. Theuse ofAgrobacterium previously thought

to be the only bacteria capable of transfer-ring genes to plants is restricted by patentprotection. The CAMBIA researchers, however, managed gene transfer using severadifferent bacteria. CAMBIA plans to makethe technology freely available throughopen source licensing, meaning that scientists will be able to use the technique withoutlicensing costs. On the same day, The NewYork Times ran an article discussing the

breakthrough and its implications.Finally, looking at an altogether dif

ferent GM rice issue, Reuters reported inFebruary that Japanese scientists havedeveloped GM rice that may help alleviate hay fever. A Farm Ministry ofcial wasreported as saying that the new strain ofrice contains a gene that produces the allergy-causing protein. The rice treatment

worked like other allergy therapies wherea small amount of the allergy-causing substance is released into the body to allowresistance to build up.

Japan Today, The Australian, Reutersand a host of other news publicationsand organizations ran reports about Aus-tralian chefs and aid workers who on 26November celebrated International Yearof Rice by cooking a world-record 7.5-ton

bowl of risotto.With the Sydney Harbor Bridge in the

background, the team used large paddles tostir together 1.6 tons of arborio rice, 4,400

What's rich, creamy, delicious and weighs 7.5 tons?

liters of stock, 800 kg of frozen peas, 1.5kg of saffron, 600 kg of cheese and butter,20 kg of garlic, and 400 kg of onions andcelery.

The risotto, cooked over 3 hours in a10- by 3.6-meter steel pan, was fed to on-lookers for a small donation, which went tocharity group CARE Australia.

Philippine news service ABS-CBN andAustralian newspaper The Sydney Morning

Herald were among those reporting thaFilipinos also put rice in the record bookson December 9, when residents of NuevaEcija, in the northern Philippines, made a2.54-tonBiko ng Mundo(Rice Cake of the

World).Some 3,000 residents from 37 villages

helped to prepare thebiko,which is made byboiling glutinous (sticky) rice with coconutmilk and brown sugar.


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diversify

Intensify toStory and photography

by Leharne Fountain

Smarter rice growing gives Cambodian

farmers an opportunity to try new

crops and gain more income


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Every year since 1995,Cambodia has produceda rice surplus. It isan impressive recordgiven the agricultural

devastation wrought by the violenceof the 1970s. Yet many Cambodianrice farmers still harvest yields ofonly 2 tons per hectare, barely enoughto feed their own families. Rice is the

most important source of income andemployment for rural Cambodians,and the source of around three-quarters of the average Cambodianscalories. Productivity gains in rice,more than in any other crop, willtherefore help reduce poverty.

One of the proven routes out

of poverty is income diversication if the rural poor can make moneyfrom a number of enterprises, notonly does this provide extra income,but it also offers them a buffer whenthings go wrong, such as crop failure.Moreover, rice farmers perched onthe edge of self-sufciency are deniedthe chance to improve their lot. Theyare forced to devote all their energiesto rice just to stave off hunger forthemselves and their families. Inshort, better rice production opens

the door to more lucrative farming.A short drive out of the

Cambodian capital Phnom Penh,Preap Visarto, head of the PlantProtection Program at the CambodianAgricultural Research andDevelopment Institute (CARDI), andInternational Rice Research Institute(IRRI) Senior Scientist Gary Jahn areconducting the Farmstead eld trial,a 3-year project supported by theAustralian Centre for InternationalAgricultural Research (seeDonorscorner on page 5). Farmsteadconsists of around 6 hectares ofrice elds in a relatively favorablerainfed environment. Standingfor Fish and Rice ManagementSystem to Enable AgriculturalDiversication, the project elds arelocated by a canal that can providesupplemental water to nearby elds,although not enough to grow a fullyirrigated dry-season rice crop.

Farmstead aims to help farmers

intensify their rice production,thereby allowing the small amount ofextra water, land and other resourcesconsequently freed up to be investedin growing other crops, which canprovide supplementary income forfarmers. In addition, the project aimsto design systems of intensicationthat complement, rather than hinder,riceeld sh farming, an importantsource of income and protein formany farm families in this region.

CAMBODIAN RICE FARMER, Marie, is participatingin a eld trial that should enable her and herellow armers to grow more rice while saving

money and resources that can be invested in othercrops. The intensied system has some armersgrowing the ast-maturing aromatic variety, PhkaRumduol (right, above and top). During the trial,armers also use traditional methods and varieties(opposite bottom and right).


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The trial will compare intensiedelds with conventionally managedelds, focusing on yields, crop loss,prot margins and sh production.

Two rice varieties are grown inthe intensied elds. Farmers rstgrow an IRRI-developed modernvariety known as IR66, which

matures in 2 months. Once IR66is harvested, they plant a varietynamed Phka Rumduol, which wasdeveloped for rainfed systems byCARDI and matures in 3 months.These varieties, each planted once ayear, during the rainy season, werechosen because they can be grownand harvested in synchronizationwith the 5-month variety, namedPhka Khnhei, traditionally grownin the region. The total growingperiod is crucial, as sufcient water

is available for only 5 months.Other considerations were

improved yield, grain quality andmarket value. Phka Rumduol, forinstance, fetches a higher marketprice because of its aromaticqualities. The CARDI-designedFarmstead system also seeks toincrease yields by leveling elds,improving fertilizer applicationand water management, and usingcertied seed to ensure seed quality.

Starting in 2004, the projecthas already delivered promisingresults. The intensied eldsof Phka Rumduol producedsignicantly higher yields thantraditional farmers elds 3.3tons per hectare, compared withonly 3 tons per hectare in eldsplanted to Phka Khnhei. Add tothis another 3 tons per hectarefrom IR66, and the intensiedelds are yielding more than doublewhat they produced in the past.

Dr. Jahn and his CARDIcollaborators are also measuring croploss from pests. Small subplots withinthe intensied and conventional eldsare either treated with pesticide orleft untreated, regardless of whatother management practices arecarried out (seeReason to cheer inRice Today Vol. 3 No. 4, pages 12-17).

This will allow us to determinewhat level of control is required fordealing with insect pests, Dr. Jahn

THE FARMSTEAD TRIAL assesses croploss rom pests to see i the intensiedarming system leads to greater damagerom insects such as stem borers, whichsever the rice-bearing panicles and causewhite head, so-called because thegrains turn white as they die.


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Like many aspects o normal lie in the country,

agriculture in Cambodia was devastated during

the reign o the Khmer Rouge. But, during

the International Year o Rice 2004, just a ew

decades since the demise o the regime, Cambodia

celebrated ten years o rice sel-sufciency. Thisremarkable recovery began when in 1985 IRRI

was invited to work with Cambodian scholars

and scientists to help re-establish the countrys

rural economy. Supported by unding rom the

Australian Agency or International Development,

the venture was called the Cambodia-

IRRI-Australia Project (CIAP) and

was led by Australian agronomist

Harry Nesbitt (see Rice Today Vol.

1 No.1, pages 14-19). Scientist Don

Puckridge, a member o the IRRI team

sent to Cambodia, has chronicled the

events that led to the rejuvenation

o Cambodias rice production in a

new book titledThe Burning o the

Rice. The ollowing excerpt rom

Chapter 2 describes some o the

enormous challenges aced by the

CIAP team when the project began.

"An enduring memory o Prey

Veng Province was o a narrow dusty road on

the bank o a canal drawn straight across the

landscape. It was a typical example o Khmer

Rouge changes to rice culture in which they

dug canals to ollow grid lines o a map without

reerence to the topography. A ew diminishing

pools o water along the bottom o the canal

were a reminder o the utility o tr ying to keep

the dry-season drought at bay. Another more

ortunate canal was hal ull o muddy water,

with a bamboo ence placed across it to trap

fsh as the water level dropped. Nearby were our

substantial wooden houses on stilts, scattered

as i they avoided associating with each other.

Conical stacks o straw near each house were

being undermined by bites rom cattle taking

respite rom the dry and almost barren felds.We stopped at a group o huts and saw an

orphan girl o about sixteen years o age tending

an earthen freplace in the open, boiling sugar

palm juice in a large wok to make palm sugar,

a common ingredient in cooking or those who

could aord it. Seeing this girl and other orphans

in that place made more impact when we learnt

that Prey Veng had over 34,000 widows and

10,000 orphans in a population o about 700,000.

Seventy percent o the men had died under the

fve years o Khmer Rouge rule and sixty-fve

percent o the remaining population was emale.

Kampong Speu Province had 17,000 widows and

7,000 orphans, Kampong Chhnang Province 15,000

widows, and so on. In the sixteen to orty-

fve age group o Prey Veng Province, emales

outnumbered males by about three to one.This disproportionate ratio o the sexes

resulted in social disruption and lack o male

muscle power or heavy arm work. Consequently,

women were oten obliged to perorm tasks that

were traditionally done by men, such as land

preparation and application o armyard manure

and chemical ertilizer to crops. The loss o

animals due to the eects o war, widespread

disease and overwork took their toll as well.

People without animals had to hire them, with

payment usually in rice or labor, or to do the

work by hand. On one occasion we even saw a

young woman with a yoke over her shoulders

straining to pull a plough while an old woman

behind it guided the blade in the urrow.

A social survey a ew years later ound that

such women had less access to animals and other

resources, were the major borrowers o inormal

loans and had less access to inormation. Even

though they may have been the only adult in the

amily, there was still the cultural perception

that they were not armers, but were helpersand housewives. In amilies without cattle or

bualoes or ploughing and raking o their felds,

it was the women who were almost always the

ones who repaid the labor owed as payment or

borrowed drat animals. One morning o ploughing

and raking was usually repaid by a ull day o

pulling seedlings and transplanting. Women

who did not own animals also provided labor in

exchange or cow manure or use as ertilizer

on their felds and they were oten exploited

because they lacked cash or other assets."

The burning of The rice

population and rice production, cambodia 1961-2000


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explains. It is generally assumedthat there will be a signicant croploss from pests. This experiment willallow us to actually measure whatpercentage, if any, is lost when nopesticides are used in each system.

Initial results of the no-pesticidetrials show a 7% yield drop caused by

pests in the intensied elds, but nosignicant loss in the conventionalelds, indicating that intensicationmay increase levels of crop loss.

While intensication increasesyields, says Dr. Jahn, it also appearsto increase the percentage of the totalyield that is lost through damage byinsect pests. Theres a trade-off, andwell perform an economic analysisto determine whether or not itsnancially worthwhile to controlpests in the intensied system.

Harvest helpMarie is one of the participatingfarmers. Her farm has a total areaof around 1.5 hectares, in fourseparate elds, all of which areinvolved in the Farmstead trials some as intensied elds, othersshe farms using her own methods.Her husband is a teacher at thelocal primary school and she hasfour children aged 12 to 17. Theday we visited, her eldest son washarvesting rice along with two hiredlaborers. She told us that her youngerchildren, who were at school, alsohelp with the harvest on Sundays.

Maries farm presents a typicalscene. All around, rice plants lieat, as though blown over by astrong wind. Marie explains thatshe attens them herself becausethe Phka Khnhei she grows is talland difcult to harvest when theplants are upright. Bundles of

rice, evidence of the days work,form curved rows and snake inwinding paths to the laborers.

Marie pays her laborers 8,000riels, just over US$2, per 100 ricebundles. They harvest approximately800 bundles of Phka Khnhei pereld, for a total labor cost of $16 pereld. She sells her rice at 400 riels($0.11) per kilogram and, with a yieldof close to 2 tons, receives around$200 income from her harvest. With

EVIDENCE OF HARD WORK bundles o harvested riceline the elds at the end othe day.


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Cambodia this year suffering fromdrought that has destroyed a fthof the countrys wet-season crop,Marie may earn up to 600 riels perkilo. She is a long way from beingwealthy but, as far as rice farmers go,Marie is doing OK. Much room forimprovement remains, though, and

by adopting Farmsteads intensiedsystem she stands to gain a better,more stable income to support herfamily. Importantly, she will alsoget a chance to farm other crops.

Although the system is provingsuccessful, Dr. Jahn says that it mayneed to be linked with a microcreditor livelihood improvement scheme.The farmers really like the systemand can recognize the benets itprovides, but some farmers may

need initial income to implementit extra money to buy goodseed, fertilizer and labor.

The exible approach theresearchers are taking to Farmsteadallows problems to be solved asthey arise. One thing preventingwidespread adoption of the IR66-

Phka Rumduol combination iscrab damage. Phka Rumduol isplanted several weeks later thanPhka Khnhei, leaving seedlingssusceptible to attack by a particulartype of crab that matures at the sametime. Marie says this would preventher from planting the two modernvarieties in the lower-lying elds thatthe crabs inhabit. It is a dilemmafor many farmers with low-lyingelds in the area. In response, Mr.

Visarto and Dr. Jahn plan to expandthe Farmstead system to includea crab management strategy.

In its rst year, Farmsteadhas shown that farmers have thepotential to double their rice yield.Farmstead farmers, having observedthe systems benets, plan to adopt

the combination of modern varietiesin their elds next season. As theyimprove their rice production,farmers can start to diversify theircrops and their income, whichultimately means a better life forthem and their families.

Leharne Fountain is an Australian

Youth Ambassador assigned for a

year to IRRI, where her duties include

serving as deputy editor ofRice Today.

FARMSTEAD SCIENTISTSGary Jahn (let) and PreapVisarto (middle) ask Marieabout her experiences withthe eld trial.


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I

f his beginnings amid the dustand dirt of a Texas farm shapedRonald P. Cantrells outlookon life, it was a storm in West

Africa that helped dene his career.I worked on a farming systems

project and we were doing village-level studies, recalls Dr. Cantrell,who last December retired after morethan 6 years as director general ofthe Philippines-based InternationalRice Research Institute (IRRI). Wehad a whole array of technologies atvarious stages of trial in this village.

It was the end of my secondyear, almost the end of thecropping season, and there was thistremendous storm. The wind justlaid everything down.Everything.It was a complete loss of crops.

Ronald P. Cantrell, the Texas farm boy made good, heads home after more

than 6 years at the helm of the International Rice Research Institute

I couldnt nd any of the farmersin the elds. So I drove aroundand I nally found them all, sittingunder a big tree, drinking beer at

about 10 oclock in the morning. Ijoined them and said, You know, Imreally sorry about what happenedto your crops. They said, No, no,thats all right. This happens allthe time. What were really sadabout is the fact that you lost yourtrials, and youll probably leave.

I already knew I was leaving.I told them, Hey those trials, Iwasnt that sure of them. I didntknow if some of them were goingto be of any benet to you or not.

And this village chief said to me,Doctor, we knew the stuff you had inthose trials wasnt going to work. But,

as long as youre here, that gives ushope that well have a link into whatwe know will help us in the future.

It may have been a humbling

experience for a young researcher,but it proved priceless. Dr. Cantrellrealized that his project hadntestablished any linkage with thenational agricultural programs.Without a conduit to the nationalsystems to feed knowledge in where itwas needed and extract local know-how and experience, there was nosustainability no way to makelasting improvements to local farmingor, ultimately, to their livelihood.

Timely lessonThis lesson was etched in Dr.Cantrells mind when in 1984 hejoined the International Maizeand Wheat Improvement Center(CIMMYT, by its Spanish acronym)in Mexico, as director of its MaizeProgram. CIMMYT, along with IRRIand 13 other institutes, is part of theConsultative Group on InternationalAgricultural Research (CGIAR).

I liked what I saw there,

he explains, because I saw aninternational center that was notthere just to do the research. Theyclearly recognized that their purposewas to strengthen and complementthe national programs becausethats the only sustainable way.

Although the family farmprovided more than mere subsistencefor the Cantrells, the young Rongrew up truly poor. Two generationsof family members before him had

The tale of a Texas farm boyby Leharne Fountain

EARLY DAYS in 199, asRobert Havener (left),interim director generalo IRRI, hands over thereins to Ronald Cantrell.

jessevictolero


19/40

19ariel javellan


20/40


worked the land and he recalls clearlyhis fathers feelings about his future.

I knew one thing from myfather, says Dr. Cantrell, and thatwas that I was going to college.He had started farming duringthe Great Depression and he wasconvinced that his childrens

future should not be on the farm.He saw that the best way out ofthat was through an education.

Needless to say, Dr. Cantrellsrural upbringing inuenced hisdecision to study agriculture. Hisfamily property was a combinedfarming ranch with both cattle andcrops, and his early inclinationswere toward veterinary science.But when I switched schools fromone university to another, hesays, I ended up in agronomy.

To support his studies,Dr. Cantrell found a job at anagricultural station working for asorghum breeder. He acknowledgesthis as a pivotal moment in hiscareer, but admits that it wasthe Vietnam War that ultimatelydrove him to pursue research.

On graduation, everyone wasgoing to Vietnam. But someonecame in and explained a programwhere you could get an educationaldelay, recalls Dr. Cantrell. Idnever considered going to graduateschool. None of my family had evergone to college before, let alone

beyond. They were just delightedthat I was going to nish.

After completing his Ph.D.at Purdue University in 1970, Dr.Cantrell worked as a maize breederat the Cargill Corn Research Stationin Nebraska. In 1975, he headedback to Purdue to become associate

professor of agronomy, and wasappointed full professor in 1981before heading to CIMMYT 3 yearslater. Following his stint in Mexico,he moved to Iowa, where he spent8 years as head of the AgronomyDepartment at Iowa State University.In September 1998, he returned to theCGIAR as director general of IRRI.

Having never previously workedwith rice, Dr. Cantrell recalls boththe trepidation and excitement hefelt when he arrived at IRRI.

It was daunting, not havingworked on such an important cropbefore, or the environment that thecrop grows in. Rice is a fascinatingcrop, probably the most difcultcrop that I ever worked on. Youtry to make genetic improvementsand at the same time maintain thatunique taste and aroma. Some of themost sophisticated palates I knoware rice eaters, he says, touchingon one of rices biggest challenges.

Wheat is mainly processed,explains Dr. Cantrell. In Africa,people always eat sorghum with somesauce. Same with maize, its alwayseaten with something. Preservingrices unique aroma and quality isreally difcult. Rice consumers are sodemanding, since they eat it alone.

As he settled into IRRI, onething in particular jumped out athim: I was very impressed withthe staff; I thought they were of a

very high quality, especially thenationally recruited staff, he recalls,referring to the Filipino researchers,managers and eld workers thatmake up around 90% of the institutesemployees. I couldnt recall any ofthe other international institutes Idseen having national staff capable of

assuming the same responsibilities.The rst major issue Dr. Cantrell

faced was the imminent loss ofseveral plant breeders. Longevity iscrucial in breeding, especially for self-pollinating crops like rice; replacingpeople like Gurdev Khush, who hadbeen at IRRI for over 30 years, wasgoing to be a real challenge, hesays, recalling the retirement of theformer IRRI principal plant breederand 1996 World Food Prize laureate.But Im delighted with the transition

thats been made. We now have threepeople committed long term who aredoing an excellent job in breeding.

Major challengesKeijiro Otsuka, chair of the IRRIBoard of Trustees, notes that Dr.Cantrell led the institute throughmany major challenges and decisions.A continuing decline in funding hitIRRI hard in 2002, causing painfulstaff cutbacks. Added to this was thegrowing international debate overbiotechnology and how it could beused to benet poor rice farmers andconsumers. Dr. Cantrell providedthe steadying hand, strong leadershipand intelligent management IRRIneeded, says Dr. Otsuka.

Dr. Cantrell was a rm believerthat the quality of research andthe credibility of the institute restupon the quality of the staff.

He was never concerned aboutmaking IRRI the biggest research

center, just the best, says DaveMackill, head of Plant Breeding,Genetics and Biotechnology atIRRI. He always focused onquality, and he convinced us toalways take the high road to doeverything with a sense of purposeand not get distracted from our coreresearch for short-term gain.

Equally important for a directorgeneral was the ability to see thebig picture and remember why the

AN INDIAN FARMERpresents a token oriendship toDr. Cantrell.

jessrecuenc

o

jkladha


21/40


22/40


Drive 60 kilometers southof Manila and you willnd a farm where, on anygiven day, more than 300

people are hard at work. Mechanicsx machinery, rat catchers laytraps, laborers transplant seedlings,workers dig irrigation channels anything you might expect tond on a commercial rice farm.

But this is no ordinarypiece of land.

Occupying nearly 200 hectares,the International Rice ResearchInstitute (IRRI) Experiment Station,known simply as the farm, is whereIRRI scientists take their research outof the lab and into the wider world.

The farm reveals the truth ofour research, says Joe Rickman,head of the Experiment Station.We can develop new technologiesand breed new varieties, but if wedont test them in the eld, and if

we dont understand large-scaleproblems and farm managementissues, then weve failed.

Lowland ooded rice eldsmake up 160 hectares and there

are some 40 hectares of uplandrice elds. The farm also featuresnearly 50 greenhouses, glasshousesand screenhouses, as well as a ricemill and a controlled-environmentlaboratory known as a phytotron.

So, what kind of researchtakes place on this prized realestate? Plant breeders, who usejust less than half of the eld area,are the biggest customers. IRRIsEntomology and Plant Pathology

Division, Genetic Resources Center,and Crop, Soil and Water SciencesDivision each use less than 10%.The Experiment Station uses theremainder to produce seeds and rice.

In plant breeding, we look forrare plants, explains Dave Mackill,head of IRRIs Plant Breeding,Genetics and BiotechnologyDivision. We take several differentstrains and breed them together toproduce new ones. Out of a million

A Day on the

by Leharne Fountain

photography by Ariel Javellana

Home to research that helps feed the worlds poor, 200 hectares of landin the northern Philippines might just be Asias most valuable real estate

Joe Rickman, iRRi expr S,ps susr. arss (above),s pr sruss.


23/40


rice plants produced this way, onlya relative handful will have thecharacteristics that we want.

Dr. Mackill points out thatplant breeding is partly a numbersgame the more plants you cantest, the greater your chances ofidentifying those that have thefeatures youre looking for. Butdealing with such large numbers ofplants obviously requires space.

More space means more plants,

says Dr. Mackill, and that meansa greater chance of success. Thatswhy the IRRI farm is so important.

Dr. Mackill points out thatalthough we often dont knowprecisely which genes give rise todesired traits, they are expressedphysically in the growing rice plants:Thats the basis of our breedingtrials. We visually inspect the plants,and select the ones that show thequalities were seeking. After several

generations, we end up with a selectgroup of several hundred, whichwe then grow in yield trials.

Take the quest for resistanceto the rice disease bacterial blight.Its very obvious which plants areinfected and which ones arent,says Dr. Mackill. We select theplants that show some resistanceto the disease and grow them inthe next generation of the trial.

Millions of plantsBreeding trials are a seriousinvestment of time and resources.Each may run for several generations,spanning periods of up to 5 years.Millions of plants can be sown onmore than 60 hectares in each ofthe wet and dry seasons every year.The farm must provide more thanjust space, too. It also providesdifferent environments nutrient-decient soils, for example where

varieties are tested for toleranceof environmental stresses.

But the farms value reaches farbeyond merely providing space forresearch. IRRIs International RiceGenebank holds in trust for humanitynearly 107,000 cultivated and wildvarieties of rice. It is the worldsmost comprehensive repositoryof rice germplasm (seeds and thegenetic material they contain).

This agricultural vault holds

seeds that can help save lives, ashappened when Cambodian seedscollected before the devastation ofthe 1970s were used to reestablishthe countrys ruined rice industryand help end mass starvation.Furthermore, the genebank is asource of genes that carry traits thatcan be harnessed to improve riceplants from tolerance of climaticextremes of cold, heat and drought tosurvival in nutrient-poor soils, to pest

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and disease resistance. And scientistsaccess the genebank to tap into otherqualities, such as nutritional value,avor and the physical appearance

of rice grains. For all that, though,where does the farm t in?

The genebank isnt static,explains Pola de Guzman,the genebanks curator. Weperiodically test the seeds and anyvarieties that fall below a certaingermination rate we plant out onthe farm to harvest new seeds.

Multiplying genebank seedon the farm is crucial, she says,not only to ensure the viability ofthe current collection, but also tosatisfy international seed requests,and to grow and characterizenewly acquired varieties.

We get requests for seeds fromscientists and farmers all aroundthe world, explains Ms. de Guzman.And, as was the case for Cambodia,we supply seeds to countriesthat have lost their own storesthrough war or natural disaster.

Indeed, the genebank allowedIRRI to supply Malaysia and Sri

Lanka with the seed of salt-tolerantrice varieties that will grow in areasdevastated by last Decemberstragic tsunami (seeNews, page 6).

In any given season, thousandsof different varieties from thegenebank will be grown on the IRRIfarm. Growing so many differenttypes of rice, side by side, brings itsown challenges. Because such largenumbers of varieties are planted,those that need similar growing

conditions, or have similar maturityperiods, are grouped together toease management and minimizethe chance of mix-ups. Harvesting

needs to be timed for optimumseed-storage potential. The farmalso has a quarantine area, whereall newly acquired seeds are grown,to ensure that the seed produceshealthy plants and, if it is harboringdisease, doesnt infect other plants.

Mini-hospitalServing as a mini-hospital insidethe IRRI farm complex is thescreenhouse facility. This is whereresearchers grow varieties that aresensitive to an open-eldenvironment, including wild species,which tend to be more difcult togrow than cultivated varieties.

We really baby them, saysSoccie Almazan, curator of the wildspecies. Different wild specieshave very different needs. Someneed partial shading and specialsoils because they grow in forests;others grow well in full sunlight.

Plant bReedeR d m s rg rs rr s usg sr-gg (bottom).

Some need to be submergedbecause theyre from swamps.

Sometimes, even the screenhouseenvironment is too variable.Varieties that are very sensitiveto environmental conditionscan be grown in the controlledenvironment of the phytotron, where

factors such as daylight hours andtemperature can be manipulated.

In areas of the farm not usedfor research, rice is grown forproduction. The harvest fromthese elds is processed in theIRRI rice mill and distributed tostaff. By-products, such as branand broken grains, are sold. Themill also facilitates research intoimproving rice milling techniques.

The production areas expandand contract as research demand

for land uctuates each year.But, as Mr. Rickman explains,efciency is fundamental.

Although its a research station,he says, we try to run the farm oncommercial lines. We try to make itas efcient as possible in terms ofboth labor and dollars and cents.

The value of the farm, though,is not in the rice produced. Itsworth lies in the opportunity itprovides scientists to put theirresearch to the test researchthat aims to help poor farmersproduce more rice, economicallyand sustainably, and so improve thelives of some of the worlds poorestand most vulnerable people.

In many ways, the IRRI farm isthe institute itself. Without the farm,there is no IRRI, says Mr. Rickman.If we lost the farm, we would losemuch of IRRIs value and, ultimately,our contribution to the poor.


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Imagine, for a moment, thatyou are a Bhutanese farmer.Farming has been in yourfamily for generations. You

manage your farm now in the sameway your father, and his father,managed the land. The otherfarmers in your village run thingsin much the same way. As far asyou know, it has always been thus.

Since you took the reins from

your father, you have grown rice anda few other crops in high-altitude,terraced wetland irrigated by waterfrom a nearby stream. But in thelast few years things have started togo awry. You struggle to get enoughwater to transplant your rice on time.Farmers from a neighboring village,situated farther up the mountainside,divert almost all the streams waterinto their crops. You know thisisnt fair, but your hands are tied

but nothing is changing. How doyou change things so that all thepeople have what they need?

This scenario is not uncommonin Bhutan. A fth of the farminghouseholds in this small,mountainous kingdom northeastof India cite access to irrigationwater as a major constraint toagricultural production. In recentyears, the system of customary

rights to natural resources that hasserved Bhutan for centuries hasbecome bumpier as the previouslyunfelt inuences of economicdevelopment, commercializationand globalization have distortedage-old traditions. Conict overresources is bringing about socialtensions across whole societies.

In the past few years, however,one approach has emerged thatmay help to quell confrontation.

A fresh approach to the challenge of sharing agricultural

resources has rice farmers playing games with scientists

by Franois Bousquet, Tayan Raj Gurung and Guy Trbuil

The game of life

history and culture dictate thatthis is the way things are done. Theother village can take as much wateras it likes, no matter how little is leftfor you and your fellow villagers.

Lately, the dearth of waterhas been worse than usual,and the situation has becomevolatile. Tempers are fraying,

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Tayanr

ajGurunG


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Agricultural scientists FranoisBousquet and Guy Trbuil seconded in 2001-04 to theInternational Rice Research Institute(IRRI) Social Sciences Division fromthe French Agricultural ResearchCentre for International Development(Cirad by its French acronym)

have set about implementing aninnovative method for managingrenewable resources in Asia.

Social factorsDrs. Bousquet and Trbuil embarkedon their project knowing thatthere is much more to establishingsuccessful, sustainable agriculturalsystems based on rice farmingthan simply providing technicalinformation and technologies.Researchers sometimes ignore

the social and economic factorsthat need to be reconciled withany new way of doing things.

According to Dr. Trbuil, itis an increasingly complex taskto manage scarce and degradingcommon resources such as water,land and biodiversity in farmingecosystems. As technology permitspreviously isolated communitiesto connect, the differing viewsand needs of more and morestakeholders must be considered.

However, he says, therehas been a recent trend towarddecentralizing natural resourcemanagement, which has givenus a chance to reassess howagricultural scientists work indeveloping countries. Scientistsapproach problems and challenges

uses a combination of eld

surveys, role-playing and simplecomputer models that simulatedifferent members of a communityand their interactions whenexploiting a common environment.

Fun and gamesComMod allows allthe peopleaffected by a community problemto examine it together and builda shared understanding of itsnature and causes. They can thenuse ComMod simulations to ndacceptable solutions. The trick is toensure sustainable use and equitabledistribution of resources. Easiersaid than done, to be sure, but itsnot all hard work. At least some ofit is, quite literally, fun and games.

As well as computer simulations,ComMod makes use of role-playinggames. These effectively act assimplied simulations that allowpeople to understand what thecomputer is doing when it simulates

a given scenario, and how thingswould work if the rules of resourcemanagement were changed.

Both of these low-tech gamesand high-tech simulations, saysDr. Bousquet, help researchersunderstand the properties ofcomplex biological or social systems.Once we validate a new model,we can work with stakeholdersto assess future scenarios andagree on collective action.

in a particular way, but this is

only one of many legitimate pointsof view. Managing rice-basedecosystems should be seen as acollective learning process.

Starting in June 2001, Drs.Bousquet and Trbuil helpedtheir colleagues from the nationalagricultural systems of Bhutan,Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnamand Indonesia to investigateresource management problemsin rice-growing communities.To do this, they used the so-called companion modelingapproach to test the effectivenessof their research methods andconsequently improve them.

Companion modeling knownappropriately as ComMod, whichmeans convenient in the nativetongue of Drs. Trbuil and Bousquet

Guy

Trbuil(3)


27/40


28/40


It is difcult to nd an imageof rice farming that is not,guratively speaking, all wet.

Pictures of green paddies with sunglinting off dark water, or of farmersplowing muddy elds with waterbuffalo, are bound up with our

mental image of rice production.But the irrigation water on which

this picture depends is starting torun critically short. About half of allthe fresh water used in Asia supportsirrigated agriculture. An astonishing90% of this ows straight into ricepaddies. This already unsustainablesituation is now combined withrapidly rising water demand fromAsias booming industrial sectorand fast-growing cities, as well asfrequent droughts. Competition forwater is intensifying and, if nothingchanges, will soon be out of control.

The Indian state of Tamil Nadu,for example, once farmed around 2million hectares of rice. In 2002 and2003, drought reduced the area ofirrigated rice production to less than300,000 hectares, and is inciting adispute over water allocation withneighboring Karnataka. Problemslike this are only getting worse more than 12 million hectares

of irrigated rice lands in SouthAsia alone are likely to face severewater shortage within 20 years.

In the face of this looming crisis,researchers in several countries areimagining a different picture forsome of Asias rice elds. In theirvision of the future, rice crops, ratherthan standing in water, are grown indry elds, like maize or soybeans.

But how to create such a ricecrop? Part of the solution has existed

for thousands of years. Traditionalupland rice varieties (seeHighs andlows, opposite) have been selectedover hundreds of generations fortheir ability to grow in free-draining,aerobic, or oxygenated asopposed to ooded soil conditions.

But these varieties help solveonly part of the problem. Althoughthey are deep-rooted and tolerant of

drought, desirable traits in any ricevariety designed for dry soils, theyalso suffer from low yields. Evenwith ample water and fertile soils,traditional upland varieties rarelyyield more than 3 tons per hectare,and often produce less than half thatin farmers elds. Farmers of irrigated(lowland) rice regularly achieveyields of 58 tons per hectare. And,

in fertile environments, upland riceis prone to lodging (falling over)under the weight of its own grain.

Rice breeders at the InternationalRice Research Institute (IRRI) wantthis to change. They are developingnew varieties that combine uplandrices adaptation to dry soils with thefertilizer responsiveness and yieldpotential of modern high-yieldingvarieties. The rst generation ofthis so-called aerobic rice has been

A dry visionAs Asias irrigation water becomes increasingly scarce, researchers

are developing rice varieties that can thrive in dry conditions

by Gary Atlin

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rs r r r s () bgs, Ppps.

Gary

aTlin

(4)


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developed by crossing irrigated high-yielding varieties with traditionalupland types, and selecting theprogeny under dry soil conditions a breeding strategy pioneered byresearchers at China AgriculturalUniversity in Beijing, and at theBrazilian Agricultural Research

Corporation (Embrapa). The resultingvarieties are direct-seeded intodry soil in nonooded elds andmanaged like a high-yielding wheator maize crop. Irrigation is appliedif available and needed, but nostanding water is held in the elds.

Aerobic rice has already movedoff the research farm and intofarmers elds in China, Brazil andthe Philippines. In northeasternChina, farmers are growing aerobicvarieties, developed by researchers

at China Agricultural University, onabout 150,000 hectares of previouslyirrigated rice lands, in rotationwith maize, wheat and other crops.Producing 45 tons per hectare,these varieties use about half as muchwater as traditionally transplantedlowland rice conrming thatthe system can be an economicallyattractive alternative to lowland riceproduction when water is limiting.

In the cool highlands ofYunnan, in southwestern China,aerobic rice cultivation is replacingenvironmentally destructiveand low-yielding slash-and-burnagriculture. Meanwhile, farmersin Brazils Cerrado region aregrowing a large commercial cropof aerobic rice under high-fertilitymanagement, producing averageyields of about 4 tons per hectare.

Replicating successThe Beijing and Yunnan groups

success with temperate aerobic riceis being replicated at IRRI for theAsian tropics. The institute startedbreeding aerobic rice in earnest in2001 by screening varieties fromits existing breeding programs toidentify any that could producehigh yields when direct-seeded inaerobic soils. IRRIs upland breedingprogram contributed a variety, knownas Apo in the Philippines, that hasa yield potential of over 6 tons per

hectare in moist but nonooded soils,and can produce 4 tons per hectarein soils so dry that conventionalrice cultivars simply fail to grow.

This capacity to extract waterand keep growing in very dry soils iscrucial for two main reasons. First, in

the regions most likely to benet fromaerobic rice, access to irrigation watercan be unreliable. The extensiveroot systems of aerobic rice varietieshelp them dig deep into the soil tond the water they need to keepgrowing until the next irrigation.

Huge problemThe second reason is control ofweeds, a huge problem in dryconditions. In a ooded ricepaddy, the water layer suppressesmost weeds. As soon as the waterdisappears, though, the weeds thrive.If ordinary lowland rice varietiesface a dry spell, they may not diebut they do stop growing. Weeds,however, continue to grow, and canchoke an entire eld in a few weeks.In dry conditions, aerobic riceseedlings push onward and upward,holding their own against the weeds.Farmers cant ignore weeds, butthey do have a ghting chance to

control them and still save water.Despite its potential, aerobic

rice continues to pay a yield penaltyand it will be some time before it iswidely adopted in irrigated areas.At IRRI and in northeastern China,experimental aerobically grownrice crops yield about 12 tons perhectare less than the best irrigatedlowland rice crops in the same area.

But the gap is closing. IRRIresearchers are developing aerobic

Conusingly, the terms upland and

lowland reer to nonooded and

ooded felds, respectively, rather

than to elevation. Upland rice felds are

oten ound only a ew hundred meters

above sea level; lowland rice can be grownon bunded (walled) terraces near the tops

o mountains, as it is in Banaue in the

northern Philippines.

Some Asian armers have been growing

upland rice or thousands o years. Small

areas o upland rice production are ound in

most Asian countries, and in some regions

it remains an important and widespread

crop.

In the hills o Thailand, Laos,

southwestern China and northern Vietnam,

armers still grow hundreds o thousands o

hectares o upland rice on steep mountain

slopes as the cornerstone o a shiting

cultivation or slash-and-burn system.

Forests are cleared and burned to open up

felds or a ew seasons o cropping, then

allowed to return to bush allow or several

years to restore soil ertility.

In a quite dierent environment,

armers in the plateau regions o several

states in eastern India grow millions o

hectares o upland rice on level ground

and in unbunded felds, in annual rotation

with pasture and other upland crops such

as millet and gram.

higs and lows

rice with a yield potential of over 6tons per hectare in dry soils highenough to compete with elite tropicallowland rice varieties. Scientistsare also identifying the upland ricegenes that allow aerobic rice to growwell in dry soils an

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Rice Today Volume 4 number 1

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