RiceToday Vol. 3, No. 2

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ISSN 1655-5422

International Rice Research Institute April-June 2004, Vol. 3 No. 2

The tao of Tom:A philosopher’s

life in science

Taking part:Farmers guidecrop selection

Rice year forum:

Farm and marketissues in Rome

CRYING TIMEWomen learn to cope when their menfolk leave the farm

O f c i a l p u b l i c a t i o n

I n t e r n a t i o n a l Y e a r o f R i c e 2



ice lacks the vitamins and

minerals children need to grow

and develo

ore nutritious helps future

generations lead happier,

healthier lives.

i

Sciencefor a Better

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Rice is

LifeI N T E R N A T I O N A L Y E A R O F R I C E 2 0 0 4



contentsVol. 3, No. 2

should 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 rst, rather than submit unsolicited materials. Rice Today assumes no responsibility for loss or damage to unsolicited submissions, which shouldbe accompanied by sufcient return postage.

Copyright International Rice Research Institute 2004

International Rice Research InstituteDAPO Box 7777, Metro Manila, Philippines

Web (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) 580-5600 or (+63-2) 844-3351 to 53, ext 2401;fax: (+63-2) 580-5699 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 withofces in 11 other countries, IRRI is an autonomous, nonprot 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 of 15 centers funded by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research(CGIAR), an association of public and private donor agencies. For more information,visit the CGIAR Web site (www.cgiar.org).

Responsibility for this publication rests with IRRI. Designations used in this publication

Cover Peter Fredenburg

Editor Peter Fredenburg

Deputy editor Adam Barclay Art director Juan Lazaro IV Contributing editors Duncan Macintosh, Gene Hettel, Bill HardyDesigner and production supervisor George ReyesPhoto editor Ariel JavellanaCirculation Al BenaventePrinter Primex Printers, Inc.

INTRODUCING IRRI ........................................................................ 4Proud to lead the way

DONORS CORNER ............................................................................ 5Agriculture and poverty reduction: The UnitedKingdom’ s Department for InternationalDevelopment unlocks the potential

NEWS .......................................................................................................... 6Three Reductions project wins

Vietnamese Award

Gurdev Khush honored in Iran

Korea gives direct seeder to IRRI

Donors increase support foragriculture group

RICE IN THE NEWS ...........................................................................8International Year of Rice makes news

Rural poverty in Asia undermines stability

‘Asia’ s rice industry in crisis’ Jakarta Post

Philippine columnist rethinks rice imports

Bangladesh government urged to ‘payfor the penny’

CRYING TIME ...................................................................................

10As migrant workers across Asia leavefarmwives home alone, three womenin a poor Vietnamese village shed lighton the socioeconomic and food-securityimplications along with a few tears

THE TAO OF TOM .......................................................................... 16A life’ s journey of nearly 3 decades in rice

research brings this beloved scientist-cum-philosopher full circle

TAKING PART .................................................................................. 22Rice breeders for diffi cult environments

are improving cultivar adoption ratesby securing farmers’ early participationin the selection process

Special section: ............................................................................. 27

INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF RICERice experts converge on ‘a rare opportunity’

in Rome

Ringing in International Year of Rice

Rice conference in Japan set for November

Photo contest highlights rice

International Year of Rice contactsoutside Asia

Conferences, meetings, workshopsand training

PEOPLE ................................................................................................. 35Last farewell for first board: Paul Ma, aged 97

Partners in progress

Keeping up with IRRI staff

NEW BOOKS ...................................................................................... 36IRRI adds three new titles to its inventory of

publications on rice research and related topics

Former IRRI soil scientist Guy Kirk releasesThe Biogeochemistry of Submerged Soils

RICE FACTS ........................................................................................ 37Rice imports come with the territory:

Exporters plant more than half of their croparea to rice importers less than half

GRAIN OF TRUTH ......................................................................... 38Fear and loathing drive needless

insecticide use



INTRODUCING IRRI

Proud to leadthe way

T he world was a terrify-ing place in 1952-53. Theperiod saw the rst use of “population 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 fundingfrom its 63 cosponsors and member statesand organizations — in particular the

World Bank and developed countries inNorth America, Europe and the Asia Pacic — the 15-center

group represents the world’slargest investment in mobiliz-ing science to generate publicgoods for poor farm com-munities.

Since IRRI’s release in1966 of the rst modernrice variety, the insti-

tute has led the way indeveloping improved

depend on them for reliable, affordablesupplies of their staple food. IRRI’s work,on its research campus at Los Baños andacross Asia in collaboration with the na-tional partners it has nurtured, has greatly 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 ecologically and 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 of their parents and grandparents at IRRI’sfounding. It nevertheless threatens to

undermine the indispensable agricultural

foundation of development, thus sabotag-ing the prospects of today’s 500 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 how they, 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-



The United King-dom’s Departmentfor International

Development (DFID) isthe government depart-ment responsible forpromoting sustainabledevelopment and reducingpoverty. The central focusof policy, explained intwo white papers of 1997and 2000, is to achieve

by 2015 the internation-ally agreed Millennium

Development Goals. Theseseek to:

• Eradicate extremepoverty and hunger,

• Achieve universal

primary education,

• Promote genderequality and empower

women,

• Reduce child mortality,

• Improve maternalhealth,

• Combat HIV/AIDS,malaria and other

diseases,• Ensure environmental sustainability,

• Develop a global partnership for devel-opment. Agriculture, in its broadest sense,

is responsible for making the connec-tions among these areas, especially in

the poorest countries whose economieshave not yet diversied and where thegreat majority of people still live in ruralareas. Furthermore a study on agriculturalproductivity and poverty alleviation thatappeared a few years ago in Development

Policy Review showed that growth in

agriculture benets the poor more thangrowth in any other sector, and that yieldincreases of just 1% reduce the proportionof people living on less than $1 per day by 0.6-1.2%.

Regional disparitiesSince 1970, largely due to technicaladvances made by agricultural research

organizations throughout the world, globalfood production outstripped populationgrowth, but the average gures disguise

DONORS CORNER

big regional disparities. In Southeast Asia,Green Revolution technology saved millionsof lives and lifted millions out of poverty by providing a platform for diversied econom-ic growth. In contrast, agricultural produc-

tion declined by 5% in sub-Saharan Africa between 1980 and 2001, and the number of people suffering hunger increased by half.Even in Asia rates of productivity growthare slowing, and many people have never

beneted from Green Revolution technol-ogy. In India alone some 300 million peoplestill live in extreme poverty.

Basically, agriculture has performed

badly in areas where it needs to work well.Consequently in recent years donor fund-ing for agricultural research investmentsin rural development has declined dra-matically in real terms, and the relevanceof agriculture has been called into question.DFID has been working on policy options

to harness renewed interest in agriculture by developing-country governments andinternational agencies.

The U.K. recognizes that more aidspent on agriculture will on its own achieve

little and has prioritizedthe need to identify andadopt practical measures

that will unlock thepotential of agriculturefor poverty reduction. Theinternational develop-ment community needsto work together to ndapproaches that can

work in situations far lessfavorable to smallholderfarming than those expe-rienced in the rst Green

Revolution in Asia.

PartnershipsEven in the past de-cade, when funding for

research became muchtighter, DFID main-tained its support forinternational agriculturalresearch. Total contri-

butions in 2002 to theConsultative Group onInternational Agricul-tural Research (CGIAR),

IRRI’s parent organization, were around£15 million, making DFID one of thelargest donors after the World Bank. Inaddition, many CGIAR centers already participate in research conductedthrough bilateral research programs. Itis anticipated that such productive part-

nerships will continue under the new research strategy that DFID is currently developing.

Recent work by the InternationalFood Policy Research Institute, partly supported by DFID, has shown the

widespread and diverse impact of

international agricultural research by the CGIAR, much of which has directly

beneted the poor. An important ndingis that increased returns for farmersoften make up only a small proportion ofthe benets, the main gains arising fromlower food prices due to supply increas-es, which benet both urban and ruralpoor. Such impacts were an inuential

factor in the decision to increase DFIDsupport to t e CGIAR y £30 m onover the next 3 years.

Agriculture and poverty reduction:unlocking the potential by

Jona t han Wadswor t h

DR. WADSWORTH, rural livelihoods adviser in the Central Research Department of DFID’sPolicy Division, adapted for this column a DFID policy paper with the same title publishedin December 2003 and available under Publications at www.dd.gov.uk.

DFIDDepartment for International

Development

5Rice Today April 2004



NEWS

Briefy Briefy Briefy

6 Rice Today April 2004

Some donors increase supportfor agriculture group

The British government’s Departmentfor International Development (DFID)

announced in January an additional US$50million in support for the ConsultativeGroup on International Agricultural Re-search (CGIAR) over the next 3 years (see

page 5). According to Paul Spray, head of DFID’s Central Research Team, this com-mitment “reects DFID’s conviction thatthe CGIAR reform process is moving in the

right direction, governance issues and sys-temwide reforms are being addressed, andnew evidence is emerging of real impactson poverty.”

The CGIAR reform efforts, led by the World Bank, are designed to streamlinegovernance, strengthen science and expandthe partners with whom the CGIAR works.The reforms were instrumental in convinc-ing Canada to increase its nancial support

to the CGIAR by $20 million, doubling its2002 support level. The government of Italy recently announced that it, too, will doubleits contribution.

Recent changes include the Inter-national Food Policy Research Institute

absorbing the International Service forNational Agricultural Research and discus-sions among the 15 CGIAR centers towardincreasing collaboration.

Ian Johnson, CGIAR chairman, saidthat he was “delighted that several donorshave increased their commitment to theCGIAR based on the conviction that the

CGIAR reform program is progressing well,and is impacting on poverty.”

Workshops for irrigated systemsThe Philippine Rice Research Institute(PhilRice) teamed up with IRRI’s Irrigated

Rice Research Consortium in January tohost a workshop on integrated nutrientmanagement. PhilRice is promoting twonutrient-management approaches to helpFilipino farmers improve their productivity:site-specic nutrient management and theminus-one-element technique. In February,IRRI hosted a planning workshop to estab-lish guidelines for the development of PhaseIII of the consortium (2005-08) following afavorable external panel review in October2003 of Phase II (2001-04).

Technologies for ood-prone rice The nal review meeting for the project“Validation and delivery of new technolo-

gies for increasing the productivity of ood-prone rice lands of South and Southeast

Asia” took place in Vietnam in February.The project, supported by the InternationalFund for Agricultural Development, wasconceived by IRRI to improve poor farm-ers’ livelihood in ood-prone ecosystems in

India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. Participants identied successfultechnologies for sustainable management of farm and natural resources. These includedan IRRI-designed drum seeder, which re-duced production costs and increased yieldin Bangladesh by as much as 30%, and leaf color charts for managing nitrogen fertiliza-tion. Participants also discussed improvingfarmers’ livelihood by strengthening the ca-pacity of the national agricultural researchand extension systems.

More hybrid riceHybrid rice developed by Syngenta Philip-pines Inc. is set to be commercialized in the

Philippines by next September, thus solvingthe hybrid seed shortage that has slowed theDepartment of Agriculture’s target to raisehybrid rice area from 7,000 hectares in 2001to 200,000 hectares by the end of 2003.

Global issues raised in PhilippinesIRRI Deputy Director General for Partner-ships William Padolina addressed poverty alleviation, biosecurity and food security attwo meetings in the Philippines in Janu-ary. Speaking in Manila on 31 January on“Poverty and the knowledge age: The role of agricultural extension” at the PresidentialCelebration on Poverty Alleviation spon-sored by Rotary International, Dr. Pado-lina warned that “there is no simple law of nature” that links technology and economicgrowth. Three days earlier, while address-ing “Biosecurity and food security” at theSoutheast Asian Regional Center for Gradu-

Korea gives direct seeder to IRRI

The Korea National Agricultural Collegeof the Rural Development Administra-

tion has donated two direct seeders, a setof steel tractor wheels and a ton of silicatefertilizer to the IRRI research farm underthe sponsorship of Kwangsan MTC Co. Ltd.and POS Ceramic Co. Ltd.

On 10-11 February, a six-person delega-tion headed by Kwang-Ho Park, head of theCrop Science Department of the college, vis-ited IRRI and tested the two direct seeders

with IRRI engineer Joe Rickman and cropphysiologist Shaobing Peng. The new tech-nology developed by Dr. Park saves laborand improves crop establishment.

The direct seeder sows pregerminatedseeds in rows and covers them with silicatefertilizer or sand. Basal fertilizer is placed

BUSINESS CULTURE IN RESEARCH: IRRI’s International Programs Management Ofce facilitated the Cambo-dian Agricultural Research and Development Institute retreat-cum-workshop in Seam Reap on 25-29 January.

The event, themed “Business culture in a research and development institute,” attracted more than 80managers and staff members, seen here in front of Angkor Wat.

5 cm below the soil surface along with theseeds to improve nutrient-use efciency.Seeds are placed 3 cm below the soil sur-face, which reduces lodging. The techniquealso reduces bird damage because silicatefertilizer or sand covers the seeds. Followingthe eld-testing of direct seeders, Dr. Park presented a seminar on the development of the new direct-seeding method.



Briefy Briefy Briefy


ate Study and Research in Agriculture in LosBaños, Dr. Padolina stressed the importanceof managing biological and environmentalrisks associated with food and agriculturein a globalized world.

Basmati grown in PhilippinesFarmers in the Bicol region of the Philip-pines have begun planting basmati rice andplan to promote the aromatic South Asian

variety, which was introduced by Bicolfarmer Rodolfo Tuanqui, in surroundingareas. Growers are currently purifying theirlines and hope that the rice will be ready formarket this year.

Improving livelihood in IndiaIRRI and the International Maize and

Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)held a workshop on “Accelerating technol-ogy adoption to improve rural livelihoods

on the rainfed Eastern Gangetic Plains”in February in New Delhi, India. The

workshop’s 58 participants from Bangla-desh, India, Nepal, CIMMYT, IRRI andthe World Agroforestry Center identied

technologies that have the potential to en-hance productivity and conserve resources— and so improve rural livelihoods — foreach of the project’s 11 sites. A work planfor farmer participatory research was devel-oped to validate and disseminate the identi-ed technologies. Participants also formeda research team of technology innovatorsand promoters for each site.

Cheaper fuel from riceMany Indian and Thai cement exporters arenow heating their kilns with rice husks. Thisalternative fuel reduces fossil fuel emissionsand, if transport distances are not too great,is relatively cheap. Burning rice husks can

potentially save millions of dollars per yearand has attracted interest in China (the

world’s largest producer of both rice andcement), Vietnam, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. One of the pioneers, Thailand’s Siam

City Cement, now saves as much as US$6.1million a year after investing $380,000 innew equipment 3 years ago.

Bran new road surfaceJapanese scientists have used rice waste tomake roads that absorb noise better, drainmore quickly and are less susceptible toextremes of temperature than conventionaroad surfaces. The new surface contains rice

bran, the brown by-product left after polishing rice grains, which is usually used ascattle feed or simply thrown away. Mixing

bran with resins results in a material that ishard and resilient but also light and porous

when added to asphalt or aggregate.

Three Reductions projectwins Vietnamese award

A communications project designed tomotivate farmers to reduce their seed,

fertilizer and pesticide use has won the Viet-namese Ministry of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment 2003 Golden Rice Award for

best agricultural innovation. The team that

developed the Three Reductions Initiativereceived the winners’ plaques in Decemberfrom Vice Minister Bui Ba Bong during theCantho International Agricultural Fair. The

IRRI-led “No early insecticide spray” proj-ect, which used a similar approach to reduceinsecticide use, won the 2002 award.

The project — led by Nguyen Huu Huan, vice director general of the Plant ProtectionDepartment, since its start in 2000 — de-

veloped a poster, a leaet, and radio and TV dramas. Supplemented by farmer interviewsand game shows, these reached thousandsof farmers and prompted three provincial

governments and the Danish InternationalDevelopment Agency to allocate additionalresources to extend the project.

The picture below shows ( from left )Tran Van Hai (Cantho University), NguyenHuu Huan (Vietnam Plant Protection De-

partment), Pham Van Quynh (Cantho PlantProtection Sub-Department), Pham Sy Tan(Cuu Long Delta Rice Research Institute),Monina Escalada (IRRI), K.L. Heong (IRRI,

see Grain of Truth, page 38),Nguyen Van Ngau (CanthoDepartment of Agricultureand Rural Development),

Pham Van Du (Cuu LongDelta Rice Research In-stitute). Not pictured areIRRI scientists Vethaiya

Balasubramanian and Ro-land Buresh, Ha Anh Dung

(Cantho provincial extension center), andNguyen Hong Linh (Cantho television).

After being launched on 8 March 2003the Three Reductions practices spread tomore than 90% of the farmers at the targesites, Omon and Vi Thuy, in Cantho Prov-ince. Most farmers found that they couldreduce input costs by as much as US$50-100

per hectare per season.Capitalizing on the success of the

program, IRRI entomologist K.L. Heongled a drama script-writing workshop using

the entertainment education approach in Vientiane, Laos, in December.

THREE REDUCTIONS: Scientists from IRRI, Swiss Agency for Development and CooperatCuu Long Delta Rice Research Institute, and Vietnam Ministry of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment celebrated International Year of Rice on 7 February in My Thanh Nam, anisolated village in the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang in which 135 farmers whopracticed Three Reductions techniques enjoyed a bumper crop and improved prots.



NEWS RICE IN THE NEWS

The leading English-language daily in the Indonesian capitalran this headline at the top of its 14 February front page. “Not

only is the rice industry in Asia facing a crisis in the supply of suchessential resources as land, labor and water,” The Jakarta Post quoted IRRI Director General Ronald Cantrell as saying, “but— most importantly of all — many nations are nding it difcultto develop sustainable ways to provide decent livelihoods for ricefarmers and consumers.”

The statement from IRRI, distributed via Agence France-Presse, cited the case of one of the Jamaah Islamiyah militants

convicted of the October 2002 bombings in Bali, which killed morethan 200. The convict had ed poverty in the Indonesian village of Tenggulun to seek work in Malaysia, where he was recruited. A fthof the working-age population of that heavily agriculture-dependent

village has left home in search of employment.Dr. Cantrell cautioned that collapsing international support

for public rice research was hindering efforts to make rice farmingless of a poverty trap. “While IRRI still has some very committeddonors, there is no doubt that the institute could do a lot more if ithad more support,” he said.

GURDEV KHUSH, former principal plant breeder atIRRI, received from Ira-nian President MohammadKhatami on 8 February theKhwarizmi InternationalAward for Agriculture,which he shared withSanjaya Rajaram, former wheat breeder at the

International Maize andWheat ImprovementCenter. This annual award,organized by the IranianResearch Organization for Science and Technologyand now in its 17th year,honors the renowned 9thcentury Iranian mathema-tician and astronomer andacknowledges achieve-ments in ve areas of science and technology.

Philippine columnist rethinks rice imports


Also…

The journal Science reported in its 16 January issue (Vol. 303, No. 5656) thatIndian scientists have genetically engineered new salt-resistant rice varieties.

A team led by Ajay Parida at the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennaihas inserted a salinity-resistance gene, isolated 3 years ago from a coastal-growingmangrove, into several Indian rice varieties. In greenhouse experiments, the plantshave grown in water 3 times as salty as seawater. Climate change is expectedto worsen seawater intrusion in coastal rice-growing areas, and the foundationestimates that a third of all irrigated land is now affected by salinization.

• The Hindu newspaper ran on 7 December a detailed report about the SardarVallabhbhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology in Uttar Pradesh con-

Promoting library automation

The advantages of library automation to meet the growing needs

of agricultural scientists were highlighted late last year at a train-ing course on WebAGRIS, the freely available software associated

with AGRIS, an international information system for the agricul-tural sciences created by the Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) of the United Nations.

The conference, which was sponsored by FAO and IRRI,aimed to enable members and prospective members of the Phil-ippine Agricultural Libraries and Information Services Network (PhilAgriNet) to actively participate and contribute to PhilAgriNetand AGRIS databases. PhilAgriNet resulted from a collaborativeeffort by agricultural information-management professionals tocreate and maintain a central electronic database of Philippineagricultural literature.

IRRI Head Librarian Mila Ramos reports that importantinformation is not reaching its potential users due to outmodedlibrary systems in the Philippines and their failure to capitalize on

the availability of free software. “Many librarians are still unableto automate their libraries,” she said. “There is an urgent need toincrease librarians’ capacity to manipulate available digital toolsand use them to the fullest.”

‘Asia’s rice industry in crisis’ – Jakarta Post

In the 15 December edition of The Philippine Star, columnist BooChanco questioned the “conventional wisdom” of pursuing self-

sufciency in rice no matter how much it forces up the retail price.“While it is important for us to make sure we always have

enough rice to feed our people, it is also equally important to makesure that it is affordable,” Chanco wrote. “The high cost of rice is a

burden to the budgets of poor families.”Chanco recalled a ap from 2 weeks earlier when several Philip-

pine newspapers prominently ran a 1 December AFP report in whichIRRI economist David Dawe said the Philippines “may never attainrice sufciency.” Some readers objected, apparently misinterpret-ing Dr. Dawe’s comments as questioning the Philippines’ right torice sufciency. IRRI responded by reafrming its policy never toobstruct any nation’s sovereign right to set food policy.

Chanco borrowed from the AFP report a quote from Dr. Dawe.

“Self-sufciency has a cost if you want to do it and in the case of thePhilippines that cost is borne by the poor,” he said. “As an econo-mist, I would say that the Philippines would be slightly richer if itdidn’t focus on self-sufciency.”

The columnist then quoted his “agri-business guru,” Rolly Dy of the University of Asia and the Pacic. “High food prices will drive

wage demands,” said Dr. Dy. “High wages will make labor-intensiveindustries uncompetitive. As a result, investors [will] prefer to locatein low-wage countries ….”

“In today’s world,” Chanco concluded, “we have to question conventional wisdom and think in terms of what we can do most com-

petitively in a borderless world market for all goods and services.”

EXTENDED CURE: During a 27-29 January workshop at the National AgriculturalScience Complex in New Delhi, India, the Consortium for Unfavorable Rice Envi-ronments (CURE) inaugurated its new project, “Integrating and mobilizing riceknowledge to improve and stabilize crop productivity to achieve household foodsecurity in diverse and less favorable rainfed areas of Asia.” CURE has receivedAsian Development Bank funding to support its activities for the next 3 years.



A bdul Bayes, professor of economics atJahangirnagar University and contribu-

tor to The Daily Star, urged in a columnpublished on 2 December that Bangladeshcease to be a nonpaying member of theConsultative Group on International Agri-cultural Research (CGIAR).

“The Bangladesh government shouldnow pay the membership fees every year and

should ‘earn’ its voice in the deliberations of the CGIAR,” he wrote, adding that an annualsubscription of half a million dollars would

be appropriate. “This is miniscule in terms

of the costs but would, possibly, raise theimage of the country substantially in theinternational forum.”

Dr. Bayes cited research by MahabubHossain, a fellow Bangladeshi economistand head of IRRI’s Social Sciences Division,measuring the benet that has accrued totheir homeland from rice research. Dr. Hos-sain estimates a benet averaging $652 mil-lion per year in the 3 decades to 1993, with

In a series of meetings and media interviewsin Australia in February, Keijiro Otsuka,

chair of the IRRI Board of Trustees, warnedthat lagging development in the Asian ricesector threatens stability in Asia, especially in Indonesia and the Philippines. Dr. Otsuka

also outlined how new technologies fromIRRI promise to lift Asian rice farmers outof poverty and still their restlessness caused

by a lack of opportunity.National, metropolitan and regional

print and radio media picked up his mes-sage, including Radio National Bush Tele-

graph, National Commercial Radio Rural News, and major rural press publications.The April/May issue of Asia Today Inter-national magazine (www.asiatoday.com.au)

was expected to carry an article on the issuesraised during the visit, and a related opinionpiece by Dr. Otsuka (www.onlineopinion.co

m.au/view.asp?article=2027) was slated toappear in The Canberra Times in March.

After headlining on 16 January the arrival of International Year of Rice with

UN grants to rice its due recognition, the Bangkok Post , the leading English-languagedaily in the capital of Thailand, the world’s

biggest rice exporter, ran on the front page

of its 25 January issue In appreciation ofthe ‘Year of Rice.’ This guest perspective

by IRRI Director General Ronald Cantrelspelled out the signicance of “the foodthat feeds almost half the world on a daily

basis” and how the International Year oRice promises to focus attention on the con

cerns of poor rice farmers and consumersespecially in Asia.

“Perhaps 2004 will be the year whenthe people of Asia realize that we share onecommon value or belief — a deep appreciation of rice,” Dr. Cantrell wrote. “More thanpolitics, religion or culture, rice is the one

thing that truly denes Asia.”Dr. Cantrell pointed out that sustain

able economic development depends onlifting rice farmers and the rural, landlesspoor out of poverty. He then outlined severaissues, challenges and opportunities now affecting rice research, from the sequencing othe rice genome and the complex questionof national claims on rice varieties, to scien-

tists’ efforts to augment the micronutrientcontent of rice and to help farmers use wa-ter more efciently. Finally, he underscoredhow a funding crisis is undermining the

work of rice scientists and other public

sector agricultural researchers.In Japan, Kyodo News, the Associated

Press and The Japan Times were amongthe news organizations that reported comments made on 20 January by Dat VanTran, senior rice agronomist for the Foodand Agriculture Organization (FAO) of theUnited Nations and executive secretary ofits International Rice Commission.

Dr. Tran, who was in Tokyo for a workshop marking International Year o

Rice, expressed hope that the Japanesegovernment would redouble its efforts toraise global awareness of the issues affect-

ing rice farming and the need to supporresearch in developing countries. He addedthat 500 million of the world’s 840 millionchronically hungry live in areas dependenton rice.

“We eat rice almost every day,” the Vietnamese FAO ofcial added, referrinto his Japanese hosts and other Asians“But in Europe and America, we raise theissue, but they are not aware. I think Japanshould try to be more involved in globalawareness.”

Meetings with Bob Clements, executivedirector of the ATSE Crawford Fund, and

with senior personnel from the AustralianCenter for International Agricultural Re-search provided further opportunities todiscuss events associated with the Interna-tional Year of Rice, current and proposed

IRRI projects, and additional prospects forpartnerships and collaboration.

cost savings in rice production accountingfor almost half. In the same period, the av-erage total investment in rice research andtechnology transfer in Bangladesh was $18million per year.

“The benet-cost ratio … is estimatedto be 16.6 if only the cost saving in rice pro-duction is considered,” wrote Dr. Bayes,counting among the additional gains foreign

exchange savings from reduced rice importsand the expertise earned by Bangladeshi ag-ricultural researchers.

“The cost savings in rice production

and faster growth in rice supply compared with population growth have contributed toa fall in rice prices by about 1.6% a year,”Dr. Bayes observed, adding that the main

beneciaries of lower rice prices were urbanand landless rural poor. “Let’s pay, partly at least, for the penny that we earn or savethrough the stewardship of CGIAR institu-tions and make ourselves proud of being apaid member.”

Year of Rice makes newsin Thailand and Japan

Rural poverty in Asiaundermines stability

Bangladesh government urged to ‘pay for the penny’


Keijiro Otsuka.

ferring honorary degrees on IRRI Director General Ronald Cantrell; former IRRI Director General (1982-88) M.S. Swaminathan; R.S. Paroda, former directorgeneral of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research(ICAR); Mangala Rai, current director general of ICAR;M.C. Saxena, assistant director general of the Inter-national Center for Agricultural Research in the DryAreas; social and religious activist Swami Kalian DoeJig; and social worker Jagdish Prasad Mathur.

• Golden Rice, the provitamin A-rich rice whosetropical versions are now under development at IRRI,continues to be a lightning rod in the ongoing debate

over this and other products of biotechnology, orgenetic modication (GM), as in Nao Nakanishi’s storyposted by Reuters on 19 February, Is Golden Rice thecrop to prove GM’s worth?, and Cecil Morella’s storyposted by AFP on 30 November, Scientists harness rice gene in global battle against poverty . Morella followedup on 7 December with another story for AFP, whichwas picked up by the Sun.Star network of communitynewspapers in the Philippines, on how funding cutsare undermining the competitiveness of IRRI andother producers of international public goods as“biotech rms muscle in on rice research.”



ARIELJAVELLANARice Today April 2004

When they come

calling in a village,Truong Thi NgocChi and TranThi Ngoc Mai

ing the refreshments. They do

is because the poor rice-farmingomen who receive them would berd pressed to offer nuts and rice

As migrant worker

across Asia leave

farmwives home

alone, three wome

in a poor Vietname

village shed light on

the socioeconomic

and food-security

implications — alo

with a few tears

cakes to nibble on while sharing

information, tea and sympathy. Chi,an associate scientist at the CuuLong Delta Rice Research Institute,and Mai, a researcher at the sameMekong Delta-based institute,

are researching how Vietnamese women cope with the demands of rice farming when their husbands

migrate away to earn extra income.

“We’re looking at how farmfamilies are bearing up as modernforces restructure rural economiesacross Asia and redene the place of rural people in national societies,”

explains Thelma Paris, a genderspecialist in the Social SciencesDivision of the International Rice

Research Institute (IRRI), who coordinates the

in Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and India.“The results have implications for formulatingpolicies to manage change in a way that broadly maintains and improves social welfare. And the

research should provide early warning if rap idchange in the co untryside is undermining thenational and regional food security that we’ve

Story and photography by Peter Fredenburg

THACH THI SEU’shusband and eldest

son left her to run thefamily farm in 1996

when they took upfarm wage labor in thenext province, visiting

home 3 or 4 timesper year.



A I L E E N D

E L R O S A R I O - R O N D I L L A


worked so hard over the past severaldecades to achieve.”

Results to date show that the women left behind generally cope well with their expanded roles. They certainly welcome the opportunity to tell social scientists about theirsuccesses and failures, their abidinghopes and loneliest fears. Butgaps still open up in conversation,potentially awkward moments thatthe refreshments help to ll.

“The women,” Chi observes,“often cry.”

The southern Vietnamese hamletof Gia Tieu consists largely of thatchhuts with oors of packed earth. A

sun-scorched, rutted track along anirrigation canal provides two-wheeledaccess from the road a couple of kilometers away. The tiny rice farmsof Gia Tieu, typically measuring1 ha or less, are poverty traps despiteirrigation. Small wonder that many residents here, especially men, seek off-farm employment.

It is an old story that workersthroughout the developing worldmigrate to nd jobs in cities and remit

earnings to relatives back home. Thisstudy found, however, that morethan two-thirds of the migrants fromfamilies in the study area in BacLieu Province, one of the poorestin the Mekong Delta, work not incities but in other rural districts,mostly in agriculture but also inconstruction. More than a third of the women receive no remittances because their husbands can barely support themselves on the US$1-2they earn for a day’s work. Others faresomewhat better, and remittances

typically account for a quarter of the income of farm families withmigrants, bringing their average percapita annual income to $190. This ishigher than the $145 gure for farmfamilies without migrants, but still below the Bac Lieu per capita grossdomestic product of $296.

In short, migrant families startout poor and usually stay that way.Nearly half of the women left behindcite their children’s education as theonly real benet of migration. Almostas many say they gain nothing. Somereport that their neighbors’ belief that they are better off actually makesgetting loans more difcult.

Despite everything, womengenerally manage to maintain theproductivity of their rice elds, albeitat the cost of considerable effort andanxiety. Pest control is especially challenging, as women’s traditionalinexperience in identifying pestsand the appropriate pesticide to useis compounded by the difculty of carrying a bulky backpack sprayer.They hire help for this and other heavy work such as preparing land, applying




fertilizer and hauling sacks of grain — often going into debtto do so.

“Still, they feel vulnerable to theft and violence,”says Chi. “Many can’t manage water as efciently as they should because they’re afraid to go out to their elds aloneat night.”

‘Just sad’

Thach Thi Seu describes her farm management as only so-so since 1996, when her husband and eldest son starteddoing farm labor — mostly threshing and hauling rice— half a day’s drive away across the Mekong Delta inCantho Province. Her husband visits 3 or 4 times per year,staying for as many days each time. He remits $20 permonth, which Seu goes to Cantho to collect when there isno convenient traveler to deliver the money. She dependson neighbors and shopkeepers for advice on fertilizers andpesticides, which she hires labor to apply.

“Mostly I’m just sad because my husband is absent,”says the 46-year-old mother of ve. “But I have to bearit because we’re poor. I used to worry that he might be

unfaithful but not any more.”En route to the next interview, Chi quietly laments

that the head of the hamlet women’s association is sitting

TRAN THI NGOC MAI takes notes as Thach Thi Seu tellsof life as a home-alone farmwife; (inset, from left ) Mai,a neighbor child, Seu and Truong Thi Ngoc Chi pose infront of Seu's house. (Continuing clockwise) Chi en-rolled in a recent course on leadership for Asian womenin agriculture research and development in the TrainingCenter at IRRI; a woman rows produce to market in BacLieu Province; Chi interviews Phan Thi Be.




in, precluding discussion of suchhighly personal concerns as sexually transmitted disease. “I’ll come back forthat another time,” she says.

Phan Thi Be is thin and visibly weak, her spindly neck bandaged where a tumor was recently removed.Despite her frail appearance and

wistful manner, this 52-year-oldmother of three makes most of thedecisions regarding her family’s0.65 ha of rice land and does much of the work. After her two grown sonsand hired hands do land preparationand planting, she lls the gaps inplanting and pulls the weeds. And,after they harvest and thresh the rice,she dries it.

“My husband didn’t have any skills when he migrated,” she recalls.“We grew rice and raised ducks, but

disease killed most of the ducks 3 years ago. That left us in debt, somy husband decided to migrate. Heand my daughter went to Ho ChiMinh City. A neighbor knew aboutconstruction work there. The bossassigns my husband easy jobs likecleaning bricks because he’s 49 andtoo old for heavy work. The mailservice is slow, so we write only if someone can hand-carry the letter.He comes home once a year duringthe Tet holiday for a week or 10 days.

“Our daughter was also doingconstruction, but now she works in a bakery,” she adds. “She doesn’t makeenough to send home money, but shecomes to stay with me when I’m sick.”

Be — who lives with her youngerson, his wife and their 2-year-olddaughter — regrets that her husband’s work comes irregularly and thathe can remit only $20-25 every 4or 5 months. All of the money goesto repaying the family debt, which

peaked at $500 and is now down to$300, despite 6% monthly interestand a new loan last year for acorrugated berglass roof to replaceleaking thatch. “We can’t spend thismoney,” she says. “I worry becauseof debt.” She pins her hopes on her younger son’s plan to raise shrimp,a venture perhaps inspired by hisseasonal work in the neighboringprovince of Soc Trang, where heoperates pond-digging machinery.

“I feel overworked,” admitsanother interviewee, Nguyen Thi Le,an apparently healthy and energetic36-year-old mother of four, aged 5 to16, whose husband has spent mostof the past 5 years building houses25 km away from Gia Tieu. “Besideshousework and taking care of the

children — including helping them with their lessons in the evening— I have to manage most of the ricefarming. After my clothes get dirty from working in the eld, I just wearthem in the canal while netting sh.Fishing isn’t difcult, and each time

I get a bowl of small sh, which isenough for a meal with vegetablesthat I gather from around thehomestead. I also do farm labor forothers, mainly hand-weedingand gap-lling. We own a boat,so when the weather is fair I ferry passengers — usually students and

other villagers — to the road.”Le’s husband returns once

or twice a month for 1 or 2 days— coming home more frequently andstaying longer when it is time to sow or harvest their 0.78 ha of rice. Heraspirations? “I’d like to earn enough




so that my husband could stay here allof the time, so we could be together asa family,” she replies. “And I hope my children can nd steady jobs.”

Children leaveLe’s desire to see her childrenleave rice farming echoes theresults of a parallel preliminary study, funded by the DanishInternational Development Agency,in northeast Thailand. Dr. Parisand Nongluck Suphanchaimat, herThai collaborator, note that “labor

migration to the nonfarm sectoris common among young laborersaged 15 to 20, and this will continueto take educated persons away from agriculture.” How the statusof farming has evolved in northeastThailand may offer a foretaste of whatto expect in less-developed Vietnamand later in Cambodia and Laos.

“We’ve completed extensivestudies to monitor the socialconsequences of male labor out-

migration in selected villages in India,Philippines and Indonesia,” Dr. Parisreports. “With funding from the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research for 2004 to2006, we’re conducting similarly extensive studies in Vietnam andnortheastern Thailand. We need tounderstand more fully the impact of

migration on the efciency of Asianrice production. Finally, we need toexpand our efforts to provide these women with proper training inimproved farming methods.”

Meanwhile, every day sees more women in Vietnam and other Asian

learn how to cope alone.

NGUYEN THI LE tends her fields ( shown here after

the harvest with Chi ), ferries travelers between theroad and the village (below ), and casts a net for dinner (opposite) — then musters the energy tohelp her children with their lessons.



A life’s journey of nearly 3 decades in

rice research brings this beloved

scientist-cum-philosopher full circle

The tao of

TOMb y A d a m B a r c l a y

Because his discoverieshave improved the lives of millions of poor rice farmers

and consumers, it’s perhapssurprising that Tom Mew

never wanted to be a scientist. He hada different dream.

“When I nished high school, I

wanted to go into liberal arts,” saysthe 64-year-old plant pathologist.“My rst choice was philosophy. But

my family wasn’t nancially secure,so my father insisted I should study something that would guarantee a

steady income.”Dr. Mew will retire in August

after 29 years at the InternationalRice Research Institute (IRRI),including 22 years as the head of its

Entomology and Plant Pathology Division. His distinguished career hasearned him the admiration of

op



colleagues, the gratitude of nationalpartners and farmers, and theaffection of all who know him. Ithas also demonstrated his spiritualresilience. Modest circumstancesmay have spoiled his early dreamof a career in philosophy, but thecreativity he brings to bear on rice

pest and disease problems proves thathe never lost his ability to dream.

“One thing I’m good at — I’m apositive thinker,” he says. “I neverthink negatively. I never say, oh, now, we can’t do this. There must be a way we can do it. If not one way, thenanother.”

Newly minted Ph.D.Born in 1939 in Weihai, a shing village in the northern Chineseprovince of Shandong, Twng Wah

Mew migrated with his family toMalaysia when he was 6 years old.In 1960, he went to Taiwan to earn a bachelor of science degree, which hefollowed up in 1965 with a masters inplant pathology from the University of Rhode Island and, in 1972, a doctoratefrom the University of Minnesota.

His rst job as a newly mintedPh.D. would shape his career and therest of his life.

Robert Chandler, IRRI’sfounding director general, was at thistime setting up the Asian VegetableResearch and Development Centerin Taiwan. He offered jobs to the young Dr. Mew and his wife, anotherplant pathologist named AnnabelleI-Pin. Dr. Chandler had a passion

for agricultural science that inspired young scientists — such that Dr.Mew still displays in his ofce an old black-and-white photograph of hismentor.

“He told all the scientists, ‘If something happens in the eld, tellme right away,’” recalls Dr. Mew. “‘No

matter where I am, bring me to theeld.’”

Two years into Dr. Mew’s brief career in Taiwan, a long andfrustrating search for disease-resistant lines of mung bean suddenly yielded a visible result. Relatingthe story, Dr. Mew’s voice becomesexcited, almost as if it were 1974again and he’s seeing the resultfor the rst time. He burst into Dr.Chandler’s ofce to nd the directorgeneral working on the budget

with his deputy, who brusquely pointed out that Dr. Chandler was busy. Mung beans could wait untiltomorrow.

“Chandler told him, ‘When ascientist comes to your ofce and sayshe has something in the eld he wantsto show you, you should drop what

A V D R C

The young Tom Mew examines tomato plants at theAsian Vegetable Research and Development Center in1973 with research assistants surnamed Chu and Ho.




you’re doing and go to the eld withhim,’” Dr. Mew recounts. “So that’s what they did. When you’re a youngscientist, that really gives you a warmfeeling.”

At Dr. Chandler’s urging, Dr.Mew applied in 1975 for an openingat IRRI. While in Malaysia on home

leave, he received a telex from Dr.Chandler asking him to go to IRRIfor the International Rice ResearchConference and — as Dr. Mew learned only upon his arrival — a jobinterview. Entering IRRI’s gates forthe rst time was memorable.

“Walking around the IRRIcampus — wow! These were peopleI admired from afar and hoped oneday to be one of,” Dr. Mew recalls.“In those days, if you worked ininternational agriculture — even for

only a few years — you knew all thenames, who was who.”

‘Go to the feld’Later that year, Dr. Mew took up hisduties in the plant pathology division,then led by S.H. Ou, a renowned plantpathologist and another big inuenceon Dr. Mew’s scientic outlook.

“Right off, he told me to go to theeld more often,” recalls Dr. Mew.“See the problem in the eld. Youcan’t make good observations juststaying in the lab. You won’t know what the crop is all about. You won’tknow how rice grows. Learn how thedisease develops, then start designing your project.”

Another IRRI plant pathologist,Hei Leung — who was recruited andmentored by Dr. Mew — conrms that

Ensuring good seed

health requires farmers

to select high-quality

seeds with care and to store

them correctly.

“We recognized seed-

related problems in riceproduction as early as the

1970s,” says Tom Mew,

noting that rice seed, like

any other, harbors microbes,

some that are benecial and

many that are pathogens.

“We worried about it, but no

one actually tried to apply

seed-health management to

control pests and diseases. If farmers start with good seed that produces a healthy crop,

it solves many production problems. So, in the early 1980s, I started looking at farmers’

options to manage seed health in the Philippines.”

Research revealed that many traditional — but waning — farm practices incorporated

basic elements of seed-health management. After saving seeds from the best plants inthe crop, farmers often stored the panicles near the kitchen stove, the heat from which

kept them relatively dry. As a bonus, smoke from the stove fumigated the seeds, reducing

pest problems. In recent decades, however, with younger men leaving the farm and the

resulting labor shortage, farmers have become less careful about selecting and storing

seed. Seed quality deteriorates from one season to the next, lowering yields.

Dr. Mew recently studied the benets of seed health improvement in a subproject of

Poverty Elimination Through Rice Research Assistance, a bilateral project in Bangladesh

managed by IRRI and funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for International

Development (see page 5). He found that educating Bangladeshi farmers on how to choose

and store seeds can increase yield by 10%.

don’t think we could nd anyone elselike him in our discipline anymore, because we’re so specialized now.”

Dr. Mew’s eagerness to get out of the lab and work closely with farmershas been instrumental in bringinglong-overdue focus on managingseed health (see sidebar above). “His work in seed health is a down-to-earth thing that has had tremendousimpact,” comments Dr. Leung.

More broadly, Dr. Mew’s successin making the Entomology and PlantPathology Division a world leader

has depended on his ability to bothmaintain a big-picture perspectiveand stay ahead of the curve regardingmodern trends toward specialization.“Tom had the vision to know that,if you want to be a player in ricepathology, you’ve got to have strengthin individual disciplines,” explainsDr. Leung. “So, after he became head,he assembled a team with me onhost-pathogen relationships usingmolecular biology, Hiroyuki Hibino

Dr. Ou’s message still comes throughloud and clear.

“What impresses me most isthat, when you take Tom to the eld,he’s at home,” says Dr. Leung. “He’sprobably the most knowledgeablerice-eld pathologist living. And he’s willing to look at things outside hisarea. That ability to appreciate sciencein general is a huge advantage. I

A R I E L J A V E L L A N A

DR. MEW and former IRRI trainer Roger Rosales ( left ) discuss seedhealth with local farmers at a 2001 workshop in Infanta, Philippines.

Begin with a seed

DR. MEW EXAMINES a rice leaf affected by bacterial leaf streak.



Rice Today April 2004 Rice Today April 2004

Some farmers in the southwestern

Chinese province of Yunnan have tra-

ditionally planted different varieties of

rice alongside each other to control pests

and diseases. Techniques varied from place

to place, and the mechanism at work was a

mystery. The practice became less common

with the arrival of modern, pest-resistant

hybrid rice varieties.

In 1998, Tom Mew and his collaborators

set out to learn how well biodiversity in rice

controls disease, which techniques are most

effective and how the process works. Cooperating farmers interplanted 812 ha with

hybrid resistant to the fungal disease rice blast and a traditional glutinous (sti

variety that fetched a good price b ut was highly susceptible to the disease. In the tr

variety, blast incidence dropped to 5% from an average of 55% seen in monocul

following year, the interplanted area expanded to more than 3,000 ha, and farmers

an average of US$281 more income per hectare compared to growing hybrids alon

Not only do rows of hybrids block the transmission of the blast fungus

rows of glutinous rice, but the presence in the eld of susceptible rice plants ap

lengthen the useful life of improved, resistant varieties. Susceptible plants provid

to pathogens, reducing selective pressure on them to overcome plant resistance

both achieve better plant protection with minimal fungicide use and preservetraditional varieties, once endangered outside of genebanks, as protable eld

By 2002, more than 200,000 ha in 101 counties of Yunnan were sporting the

tive pinstripes made by individual rows of tall traditional varieties between 5 o

of shorter hybrids. The New York Times described the project as “a stunning ne

from what has become one of the largest agricultural experiments ever.” The te

is now being applied in other countries and has helped quell outbreaks of tungr

the Philippine province of Iloilo.

After he hangs up his IRRI labcoat in August, Dr. Mew aims to

stay active in research. With hissecond wife, Teresita, and theirtwo daughters, he will stay in thePhilippines. Perhaps he will indulge,at least for a while, his taste for

reading Shakespeare and collectingne Chinese tea services. His rstproject will be a comprehensiverevision of Rice Diseases , the

pathologists’ bible originally written by the same Dr. Ou who advised himto get out of the lab and into the eld.

Dr. Mew’s 29 years of workingon rice, the staple food of half of

humanity, has allowed him to achievemore than he would likely havedreamed of as a young Ph.D. workingon mung beans in Taiwan. And

philosophy’s apparent loss has turnedout to be science’s gain, becomingthe yin that guided his personal andprofessional development in tandem

with the yang of scientic training.

“To be a good scientist,”he reminds us, “you need to besomething of a dreamer.”

A different stripe viruses, Mike Bonman on fungi,d Paul Teng, an epidemiologistth a systems approach. The plantthology unit has since evolved into

integrated team of researcherscluding Nollie Vera Cruz on host-ant resistance and Il-Ryong Choi onrology.”

Ren Wang, IRRI deputy director

neral for research, commentsat ever-tighter budgets in

ublic research, shortened projectmeframes and donor pressure for

mmediate, development-orientedsults demand today a response from

RRI that emphasizes the high quality its science. Dr. Mew’s work hasen particularly valuable in this light.

“He’s conscious of nurturinge research quality — the sciencert — of the division,” says Dr.

ang. “Under his supervision, thentomology and Plant Pathology

vision and the Seed Health Unitve grown particularly strong in thisgard.

“He has contributed a lot in

rms of using a systems approachaddress rice pest and diseaseoblems in the context of the wholeoduction environment,” the deputy rector general adds. “And Dr.

ew describes this approach ande underpinning philosophy in hispers. That’s very important.”

Dr. Wang explains that viewing asystem as a whole, and not merely as

a sum of its parts, pervades Dr. Mew’s work, illustrating the point withhis research on using biodiversity

to manage rice disease (see sidebaropposite).

“There is a deep philosophy behind it,” says the deputy directorgeneral. “Dr. Mew explores themechanisms built into traditionalagronomic practices such as

intercropping and rotation andso on. And he explores the use of natural forces — using biodiversity to maintain biodiversity, to achieve

harmony with nature. This is aninnovation of great potential.”

Quest for harmony Along with Dr. Mew’s self-proclaimed

optimism, a quest for harmony,arising at least partly from his interestin Buddhism, permeates his life inand out of science. Sometimes the

quest has required a special effort.Following his rst wife’s death in1987, Dr. Mew set up the AnnabelleI-Pin Mew Foundation to assist poor

but academically gifted Filipinos with

their high-school studies. More than50 students have beneted to date,most of them going on to university.

Rice Today April 2004


IRRI PLANT PATHOLOGIST Hei Leung discusses rice pathology with Dr. Mew, who

recruited him in 1986. Dr. Mew leads a Consortium for Unfavorable Rice Environ-ments study tour (below left ) in Yunnan Province, China, including C.R. Rajendran(right ), director of the Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Divisionof the Asian Development Bank’s Mekong Department. The black-and-white photoof Robert F. Chandler (opposite), IRRI founding director general and Dr. Mew’sboss in Taiwan, is a reminder of his inuence over Dr. Mew’s career. The photobelow Dr. Chandler's shows then-President Jacqueline Fletcher welcoming Dr. Mewin 2002 as a fellow of the American Phytopathological Society.

A I L E E N D

E L R O S A R I O - R O N D I L L A

P E T E R F

R E D E N B U R G

I R R I

INTERPLANTING in Yunnan Province, Ch



Rice Today April 2004 Rice Today April 2004

Rice breeders for difcult environments

are improving cultivar adoption rates by securing

farmers’ early participation in the selection process

Rice breeders who targetrainfed areas struggleto emulate the successof breeders for irrigated

conditions, who see theirproducts rapidly adopted by farmers.This success stems from breeders’clear understanding of the needs andpreferences of farmers who grow

irrigated rice and their ability toreproduce the irrigated productionenvironment on the research station.

By comparison, developingimproved rice varieties fornonirrigated areas has been slow andfrustrating. Farmers who depend

entirely on rainfall farm a bewilderingarray of environments, from thecraggy mountains of northern Laosto the tidal ats of Bangladesh.They are often much poorer than

those in irrigated areas because they produce only one rice crop per yearand eke out yields that are lower on

average than those of irrigated-ricefarmers. They sell less of their output,depending heavily on their rice cropfor basic household food security.

Because their cash income is low,and they risk losing crops to droughtand ood, farmers in rainfed areasminimize risk by applying muchless fertilizer than do irrigated-rice

growers.The highly productive, fertilizer-

responsive varieties bred for irrigated

conditions cannot tolerate thooding and drought that comafict rainfed areas, which re

varieties specically adapted

them. Asian breeding prograproduced many such candidaonly a few have been widely a

by farmers — notably Mahsu

Swarna in India and Banglad

TDK 1 in Laos — and then onin relatively favorable rainfedIn the driest uplands and the

A TRIBAL WOMAN in northeher preference by piling Jobto the name of a rice varietof preference analysis votinparticipants to express the their opinions by piling up few or none. A farmer (oppnotes at the same eld dayPrabang, but most activitiepatory varietal selection dofarmer literacy.

PETE

Taking partTaking partby Gary At l in



B R U C E L I N Q U I S T ( 2 )


ood-prone lowlands, farmers

continue to grow traditional varieties.Two reasons explain why rainfed

rice farmers are slow to adoptimproved varieties. One — a problemmore of extension than breeding — isthat many farmers simply cannotget seed of new varieties. Anotherreason is that the varieties may notperform well in the challengingrainfed environment or else lack a characteristic of unanticipatedimportance to farmers, such aspalatability the day after cooking orease of threshing. The complexitiesof developing acceptable cultivarsfor variable and stressful rainfedenvironments require that breeders become deeply familiar with farmers’needs and preferences.

To keep improved varieties from

languishing on the shelf, breeders areadopting new methods that involvefarmers in varietal development at anearlier stage than traditional methodshave done, testing the performance of new lines under farmer managementand soliciting farmer opinion aboutthe full range of production and end-use characteristics. These methodscomprise a suite of techniques calledparticipatory varietal selection (PVS).

Conventional rice breedingprograms usually seek farmer inputonly at the very end of the process, when newly released varieties, usually only one or two per year, are evaluatedin on-farm demonstration trials.

The innovation of PVS is toinvolve farmers early in the selection

process, toensure that they like released varieties wellenough to adoptthem. What

distinguishesPVS from simpleon-farm testingis the emphasison systematically collecting farmeropinions andpreferences. This“innovation” isnot really new. Inthe early 1990s,the International

Rice Research Institute (IRRI) andits Cambodian partners annually conducted hundreds of on-farm variety trials in which farmers wereasked to rate the varieties. But theincorporation over the past decade of PVS as a standard step in the breedingprocess has revitalized many Asian

rice breeding programs.IRRI and its collaborators

have enjoyed substantial success with a set of simple techniquesfor institutionalizing farmerparticipation. At the beginning of aPVS program, focus group discussionsreveal the varietal preferences andrequirements of farmers, bothmen and women. Then farmergroups identify preferred varietiesin a researcher-managed trial of arelatively large number of advanced

breeding lines.

Preference analysisIn a balloting procedure knownat IRRI as preference analysis,farmers vote for their preferred varieties by depositing a ballot ina box or envelope placed in frontof each variety (men and womenuse ballots of different colors toreveal gender differences, if any, in varietal preference). The method isfast, simple and effective, even withilliterate farmers, because it doesnot require them to write. Nor doesit require researchers to take notesor survey individual farmers. Andparticipants enjoy it — Philippinefarmers often call the process a“beauty contest.”

After the vote, farmers andresearchers discuss the mostpreferred and disliked varieties todetermine what made them so. Inthe following season, researchers

distribute the preferred varietiesto farmers to evaluate on their ownfarms, under their own management.Usually, each participating farmerreceives two or three test varieties.These “baby” trials (the “mother” being the earlier researcher-managedtrial) are repeated many times. By minimizing their own involvement,researchers ensure that the trials aremanaged in the same way as the restof the farmer’s crop and — always an

FARMERS IN NORTHERN LAOS evaluate an upland, or dry field, rice variety in a participatory varietal selectiontrial and (bottom) taste candidate varieties before voting their preferences for eating quality.



T H E L M A P A R I S

H . N . S I N G H


important consideration in rainfed

rice research — minimize the cost pertrial.

Rather than harvesting and weighing crop samples, researchersoften identify preferred lines by relying on farmer ratings of the varieties. In addition to questionsabout yield and quality, farmers areasked whether they plan to grow the variety next year or have given seedto friends or relatives. Eagerness togrow a variety again and neighbors’demand for it are strong indicationsthat it is widely preferred.

In India, IRRI’s collaborative breeding networks facilitate theadaptation of PVS for rainfed rice breeding. Since 1992, breeders ineastern India, for example, have worked with IRRI through theEastern Indian Rainfed LowlandShuttle Breeding Network to developimproved varieties for ood- anddrought-prone areas. The network links small and isolated rainfed rice

breeding programs and allows themto exchange promising breeding linesand evaluate them in a broad rangeof environments. It serves a vast area,encompassing eight states with 24million ha of rainfed rice lands, andhas been an excellent laboratory forintegrating participatory methodsinto rainfed breeding programs.

V.N. Singh, a rice breederat Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology

(NDUAT), located near Faizabad in

eastern Uttar Pradesh, works with Abha and H.N. Singh, a husbandand wife team of social scientists, as well as with Thelma Paris, an IRRIsocial scientist, to develop varietiesfor ood- and drought-prone rainfedareas. They have established astrong relationship with farmers inseveral villages in Siddharthnagar,a district near the border withNepal. New lines from NDUATand other centers in the breedingnetwork are evaluated by farmersat central locations in each village.The following year, each interestedfarmer grows larger plots of one ortwo promising varieties.

Farmers have identied several

varieties with better yield andsubmergence tolerance than the widely grown Swarna, and these arenow undergoing advanced testingin state and national cultivar trials.Similar programs underway at mostsites in the eastern Indian breedingnetwork aim to ensure that varieties

released by the formal breeding sectorare both agronomically productiveand valued by farmers.

The NDUAT program featuresstrong collaboration between breedersand social scientists. Abha and H.N.Singh see to the inclusion of womenand farmers from disadvantagedsocioeconomic groups in the selectionprocess, and they have taken thelead in monitoring farmer-to-farmerspread of introduced breeding lines togauge farmer preference.

Training in methodsUnfortunately, not all rainfed breeding programs enjoy the servicesof social scientists, but experience atFaizabad and elsewhere has shownthat, with training and experience, breeders and agronomists canthemselves boost farmer participationin the selection process. Trainingin PVS methods — including survey methodology and the art of elicitingfrom farmers, not least women andmarginalized groups, informationuncontaminated by leading questions— is now part of the IRRI TrainingCenter’s advanced plant-breedingcurriculum.

INSPECTING A RICE plant in Uttar Pradesh, India, are ( from left ) Abha Singh, a social scientistat Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology (NDUAT); Thelma Paris, an IRRIsocial scientist; Sanjay Singh, a former plant breeder at NDUAT; and a farmer. Abha Singh andher husband, H.N. Singh (bottom, right ), another NDUAT social scientist, have greatly facili-tated participatory varietal selection in Siddharthnagar district, near the Nepali border.




Similarly, PVS is helping toheighten the impact of improved varieties of upland rice, which growsas a rainfed dryland crop like wheat.

In an upland rice-growing area of Batangas, a few dozen kilometersfrom IRRI headquarters, and in the Arakan Valley of Mindanao, IRRI has been working directly with Philippinefarmers to identify acceptable varieties and, not incidentally, torene PVS methods.

A PVS program initiated in2001 tested both improved, input-responsive modern upland varietiesand puried seed of traditionalMindanao tropical japonica types valued for their quality. Farmersin Mindanao, who still grew or atleast remembered the traditional varieties, rated the puried traditional varieties very highly. Farmers inBatangas, who no longer grow such varieties, strongly preferred fertilizer-responsive improved varieties

with high yield potential. Thus,farmers in similar agroecologicaland socioeconomic environmentscan have markedly different varietal

preferences. PVS can help breederstailor varieties to local needs andpreferences.

PVS is having an impact ineven the most extreme rainfedenvironments. In the highlands of northern Laos, farmers grow uplandrice on steep hillsides using shiftingcultivation. However, populationexpansion has forced farmers toshorten the soil-regenerating fallow periods between rice crops, reducingsoil fertility and intensifying weedpressure.

The long-term solution isto develop diversied croppingsystems that include rice grown onpermanent elds in scattered pocketsof atter, more fertile land. In themeantime, though, Lao farmersneed varieties that can tolerate theinfertile, drought-prone conditionsthey currently face. Because most Laostrongly prefer local types, notably high-quality glutinous (sticky)

varieties rarely found outside of Laosand Thailand, the search for such varieties has focused on screeningthe large national germplasmcollection for traditional varieties with particularly good agronomicperformance under unfavorableconditions.

In the mid-1990s, Lao andIRRI researchers started screeningupland rice in agronomic trials atthe upland research station at Luang

Prabang. They soon recognized thatthe material had to be quickly movedoff the research station and intothe hands of farmers for identifyinguseful varieties.

PVS trials began in 2001under the leadership of Lao-IRRIagronomist Bruce Linquist and in

collaboration with Lao extension workers from district agriculture andforestry ofces. Each year saw 10 to16 varieties, previously identied ashigh yielding in researcher-managedtrials, tested on dozens of farmsthroughout northern Laos. Through balloting, farmers of different ethnicgroups expressed strong preferencefor large-seeded varieties with bigpanicles (grain clusters). Researchersand extension workers also collected yield data from these multilocation

trials, which identied the traditionalupland variety Nok as a farmerfavorite for its grain quality andperformance in infertile elds.

Ongoing impactPVS is having an ongoing impacton the working style of breedersand agronomists serving farmersin difcult rainfed environmentsall over Asia. Most breeders usedto consider their work nishedonce high-yielding varieties wereidentied in multilocation trials andrecommended to national releasecommittees. Now there is widespreadrecognition that breeders and farmersneed to work together through muchof the selection process to ensurethat the varieties released by nationalprograms meet the needs of farmersin difcult environments.

To do this, breeders areincreasingly moving off the researchstation and adopting methods

that were previously viewed as theproprietary tools of social scientists.This sea change in the breedingprocess is generating impact indifcult rainfed environments.Progress will accelerate as researchersene PVS methods and expose more

breeders to them.

Dr. Atlin, a rainfed lowland rice breeder at IRRI, is chair

of the working group for drought-prone lowlands of the

Consortium for Unfavorable Rice Environments.

BRUCE LINQUIST is the leader of Lao-IRRI’s participa-tory varietal selection activities in northern Laos.

T R A I N I N G C E N T E R

AT A PARTICIPATORY varietal selection site in Tarlac, Philippines, for aerobic rice (an intensive, dryfield cropbeing developed for water-short areas), Gary Atlin (left ), the author of this article, trains breeders fromseveral countries in participatory techniques with the help of Army Lactaoen ( center ), the National IrrigationAdministration researcher who coordinates the site.

P E T E R F R E D E N B U R G



Rice experts converge on ‘a rare opportunity’In the world of international agricultural

research last February, all roads led to Rome

Photo contest

highlights rice

Special section: INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF RICE

HRIS STOWERS (5)

D U N C A N M A C I N T O S H

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UnitedNations has announced a global photography contest on the

International Year of Rice theme “rice is life.” A panel of distinguishedphotojournalists and other photo professionals, as well as seniorFAO International Year of Rice ofcials, will select a short list ofcontestants, whose work will be displayed along with the winningphotos at www.rice2004.org by 20 September.

The Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) of the United Nations heldon 12-13 February its agship eventfor International Year of Rice, the

conference Rice in Global Markets andSustainable Production Systems. The event brought to Rome leading rice experts fromaround the world.

The conference coincided with the openingof an exhibit occupying, until the end of February 2004, the entire atrium of the FAO headquarters

continued on page 3

IRRI DIRECTOR GENERALRonald Cantrell (left ) andRobert Havener, his interimpredecessor in 1998, take

in American rice at the FAOatrium exhibition in Rome.




in the Italian capital. Each of veregional zones in the exhibit — Europeand North America, Latin America, Asia and the Pacic, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Near East and North Africa — explored the rice-relatedissues of food security, nutrition, agro- biodiversity, environment, livelihood,

science and culture.Calling the International Year

of Rice “a rare opportunity for theglobal community to work togethertowards fullling the MillenniumDevelopment Goals and the objectivesof the World Food Summit,” LouiseFresco, assistant director general of the FAO Agriculture Department,said that success depends uponglobal collaboration and internationalownership. “This is an actioncampaign,” she added, “a chance for

us to make good on our promise to the billions of people for whom rice is life.”

The rst day of the conferencefocused on rice in global markets. Among the issues addressed were thestate of the international rice market,the likely impact of multilateral tradenegotiations, and expanding marketsfor value-added rice products.

Mahabub Hossain, head of the Social Sciences Division of theInternational Rice Research Institute(IRRI), got the ball rolling with anoverview of long-term prospects for

the global rice economy. He predictedthat growth in demand for rice willslow substantially, particularly inmiddle- and high-income countries in Asia and Latin America, as population

control takes hold and prosperity brings more varied diets. Demand forrice will increase by 1.1% per year inthe next 3 decades, he said, or less thanhalf of the 2.4% annual increase in riceconsumption in the last 3 decades.

“Even if the demand grows at aslower rate,” Dr. Hossain cautioned,“global rice production must reach800 million tons of unhusked rice by 2030 to match demand — an increaseof 200 million tons over the peak production level reached in recent years.”

Constraining production growthis the worsening scarcity of land, laborand water for rice. Dr. Hossain saw little scope for expanding irrigatedarea but vast long-term potential forincreasing yield in rainfed areas. “One bright spot,” he said, was the new rice for Africa (NERICA) developed by the West Africa Rice Development Association – The Africa Rice Center.He noted, however, that NERICA

varieties target only 4 million out of 150 million ha of global rice land.

“The impact of [NERICA] onglobal rice production will not besignicant,” he predicted. “It will havea substantial effect on rice productionfor individual countries in West Africa […] but is unlikely to offset theincrease in demand” in sub-Saharan Africa.

David Dawe, IRRI economistand former food-policy adviser to the

Indonesian government, examinedthe changing structure, conduct andperformance of the world rice market,starting with today’s historically low prices.

“Because the poorest Asians arelandless rural dwellers who mustpurchase their daily rice, low foodprices are important for poverty alleviation in Asia,” Dr. Daweexplained, adding that other rice-decit farm households and the urbanpoor also benet.

Increased competition“Not only are world rice prices muchlower than in years past, they arealso much more stable,” he reported,crediting improved stability of percapita production, a pronounceddeepening of the world market, andthe renewed commercial orientationof several major exporters. “In termsof tonnage traded, world trade inmilled rice increased from an averageof 13.5 million tons in 1984-93 to anaverage of 23.9 million tons in 1994-2003, a near doubling of the market.”

Citing his coauthor, Tom Slaytonof Slayton & Associates in the United

States, Dr. Dawe noted the diminishingroles of governments and large tradingcompanies in the international ricetrade. “Today, there are more smalltrading companies,” he observed,“which has increased competition anderoded trading margins.”

Despite progress towardliberalizing the international ricetrade, serious distortions remain.“Japan, Korea and Taiwan (China)have all increased their level of

F A B I O A C O N I





imports as part of the World TradeOrganization negotiations, butprotection in these countries isstill extraordinarily high as thegovernment effectively controls thequantity of imports through very hightariffs or quotas,” Dr. Dawe reported.

Dr. Dawe was speaking to an

audience of more than 300 delegatesrepresenting all of the major rice-producing and -consuming countriesin the world — mostly from Asia, butalso from Africa, North and South America, Australia, and Europe.The conference was one of the rsttimes that most principal membersof the international rice industry have gathered to consider issues of crucial importance such as trade andprotectionist policies, the looming water crisis, and the poverty that

aficts most rice farmers.Delegates focused on the need

for the International Year of Riceto achieve tangible results in termsof improving farmers’ livelihoodand ensuring that growing rice becomes more environmentally and economically sustainable. They highlighted the impact of unfair tariffsand taxes, and several delegates calledon governments to recognize thedifculties facing poor rice farmers.

More than 100 invited guests joined delegates on the rst eveningof the conference for a gala receptionin the FAO atrium, where theexhibition on rice was on display.The reception buffet, provided by representatives of the Thai and Italianrice industries, presented an array of exotic rice dishes for delegatesand guests, who treated the informalevent as an opportunity to debatemany of the issues raised in the day’spresentations.

The focus of the conferenceon the second day moved to thechallenges and opportunities posed by sustainable rice-based productionsystems. Gurdev Khush, formerprincipal rice breeder and head of IRRI’s Plant Breeding, Genetics andBiochemistry Division, presenteda keynote address on harnessingscience and technology for sustainablerice-based production systems.

“In spite of all the achievements

of the Green Revolution, seriousfood problems exist in the world,”said the world’s most celebratedrice breeder. “Chronic hunger takesthe lives of 2,400 people every day.Currently there are more than 800million undernourished people in thedeveloping world.”

New plant typeDr. Khush outlined the breedingstrategies available for boostingthe yield potential of rice. Afteraddressing conventional hybridizationand selection procedures, hedescribed the ideotype breedingstrategy with which he designedthe new plant type (NPT) for low tillering, no unproductive tillers,200-250 grains per panicle, dark green leaves that are thick and erect,

and a vigorous and deep root system.“Three NPT lines have been releasedin China and one in Indonesia,” hereported, adding that other nationalpartners are evaluating and furtherimproving NPT lines.

Turning to heterosis breeding, Dr.Khush reported: “Rice hybrids with

a yield advantage of about 10-15%over the best inbred varieties wereintroduced in China in the mid-1970sand are now planted on about 45%of the rice land in that country. […]Increased adoption of hybrids in thetropics should contribute to increasedproductivity.”

Dr. Khush lauded the emergingarea of wide hybridization, or wedding crop cultivars with wild ricespecies (see Rice Today 3:1, pp 14-19)“Wild species of rice are a rich sourceof genes for resistance breeding,”he said, adding that diseases andinsects damage annual yields by asmuch as 25%. In the realm of geneticengineering, he predicted that alteringthe photosynthesis pathway of ricefrom C3 to the more efcient C4 type, by introducing cloned genes from the

C4 crop maize, could boost the yieldpotential of rice by 30-35%.

Looking beyond rice, PrabhuPingali, director of FAO’s Agriculturaland Development Economics Division,considered the opportunities andconstraints affecting agriculturaldiversication.


CONFERENCE VOLUNTEERS Fabio Aconi anDebbie Townes smile over a poster. At a wgroup meeting (opposite top, from left ) aert Gouantoueu Guei, head of genetic res

at the West Africa Rice Development Assotion; Eric Kueneman, head of FAO’s Crop aGrassland Service; Mahmoud Solh, head o

Plant Production and Protection sion; and Dat Van Tran, execu

secretary of the InternatRice Commission at FA

Mahabub Hossain (

site bottom, secon

right ), head of IRSocial Sciences Dconverses with Madelegates.




“The rice sector in Asiais facing the dual challengeof sustaining high rates of rice productivity growth while at the same timetransforming itself froma subsistence-orientedmonoculture system to a

diversied, market-oriented system,”observed the former IRRI economistand later director of the EconomicsProgram at the International Maizeand Wheat Improvement Center.

Dr. Pingali cited risk aversionas a signicant impedimentto diversication, adding that“the diversication ‘start-up’phenomenon, of high prices forseveral seasons leading to oversupply and a consequent collapse of

in most developing countries is becoming more and more obsolete with economic growth,” Dr. Pingaliaverred. “The relevant developmentparadigm for the 21st century isone of food self-reliance, wherecountries import a part of theirfood requirements in exchange fordiverting resources out of subsistenceproduction. Future emphasis of agricultural policy ought to beon maximizing farm householdincomes rather than generating food

surpluses.”Other issues considered in the

course of the second day included biodiversity in rice-based productionsystems, water use, biotechnology,upland rice environments, rice-sh systems and hybrid rice. IRRIDirector General Ronald Cantrellmade the rst of ve presentationson regional perspectives on riceproduction and poverty alleviation.He naturally focused on Asia, where56% of humanity — including 70%of the world’s 1.3 billion poor people— grows and consumes 92% of the world’s rice.

Dr. Cantrell outlined IRRI’stwo-pronged strategy of “increasingproductivity in favorable environ-ments while developing ricetechnologies that have minimaladverse effects on the resource baseof fragile environments” to meet thegoals of ensuring food security andalleviating poverty while protecting

the environment. He touched on the

range of research areas by which IRRI pursues thesegoals, including naturalresource management,integrated pestmanagement, agriculturalengineering andpostharvest technologies,

and social and policy studies. Hismain focus, however, was on theinstitute’s traditional core areasof plant breeding and germplasmconservation and use.

Rice genomics“The sequencing of the rice genome,and then discovering the functionsof individual genes and combiningthem to accelerate crop improvement,is revolutionizing rice science,” hesaid. “IRRI’s roles as a producer

of knowledge and a catalyst intechnology development and transferamong various public institutions— and increasingly between the publicand private sectors — are importantas never before to assure strengthin both sectors and that a balance ismaintained.”

IRRI catalyzed the formation of the International Rice FunctionalGenomics Consortium, he explained,to engage developed and developingnations alike in the functionalcharacterization of all agronomically important genes in rice. “Activeparticipation by developing countries will ensure access to the new sciencein the future,” he said. “IRRI canserve as the unbiased broker betweenrice-improvement institutions inthe developing world and advancedresearch institutes.”

IRRI, Dr. Cantrell concluded, isuniquely placed to ll this role as thenstitute strives to bring to the poor

the benets of new technologies.

The United Nations creates international years

to encourage governmental and

nongovernmental attention to important issues,

rather than just urgent ones.

Posted on www.onlineopinion.com.au by Keith Suter, a consultantto the Wesley Mission, Sydney, Australia

”

“

RUNGTHIP THONGMALAI from Thailand talks rice withher son Apichart at the exhibit in Rome.

prices, is all too common.” Otherdisincentives to farmers’ investmentin diversication include insecureland rights, rigid design and inexible water delivery in existing irrigation

systems, and high labor requirementsfor cash crops.

A recent FAO/World Bank study on farming systems andpoverty nevertheless suggested that“diversication is the single mostimportant source of poverty reductionfor small farmers in South andSoutheast Asia,” he said.

“The paradigm of staple foodself-sufciency that has been thecornerstone of agricultural policy

International Year of Rice contacts outside Asia

Ricegrowers Association of Australia (www.rga.org.au). Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation

(Embrapa), Dr. Beatriz da Silveira Pinheiro ([email protected]). Ivan Angulo Chacon, FAO Costa

Rica ([email protected]). Côte d’Ivoire, Maurice Ossieny, administrateur de M12 (Minitère Ministère)

([email protected]) and Dr. L. Akintayo of WARDA ([email protected]). Eduardo Martinez Oliva,

Asociacion Cubana de Tecnicos Agricolas y Forestales ([email protected]) and Ana Maria Navarro, FAO

Cuba ([email protected]). Dr. Badawi A. Tantawi, Egypt National IYR Committee (Badawi_a_tant

[email protected]). Italy, Giacomo de Ghislanzoni Cardoli, president, Agriculture Commission of the

Chamber of Deputies ([email protected]). Martin Smith, FAO Madagascar ([email protected]).

Uruguay, Robert Frugoni, general manager, Asociacion de Cultivadores de Arroz ([email protected]).




T

he Secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)

ofcially launched itscelebration of International Yearof Rice on 13 January in Jakarta,Indonesia. Joko Budianto, then-director general of the Indonesian Agency for Agricultural Research andDevelopment, delivered a keynoteaddress on behalf of Minister of Agriculture Bungaran Saragih.

“Rice cannot be separated fromthe livelihoods of most Indonesians,”he said, adding that more than half earn their livelihood in rice elds.

“And the rich cultural heritage of different ethnic groups in this country is based on rice.”

About 100 participants at theevent represented ASEAN membersBrunei Darussalam, Cambodia,Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar,Philippines, Singapore, Thailandand Vietnam; the “plus three” statesJapan, China and South Korea; theFood and Agriculture Organization(FAO) of the United Nations;IRRI; and local schools. SjarifudinBaharsjah, chairman of the IndonesiaRice Foundation; William Padolina,IRRI deputy director general forpartnerships; and Tsukasa Kimoto,FAO representative in Indonesia, were among those who spoke onthe signicance of rice in ASEAN. A rice exhibit included displays fromIRRI and the Asia Rice Foundation,Indonesia Rice Foundation, FAO, Web-based trading hub Agritani, World Food Program and Indonesian

Ministry of Agriculture.“We take rice for granted all the

time,” said ASEAN Secretary GeneralOng Keng Yong, who pointed outthat the ASEAN logo contains 10 ricestalks representing member states.“But, when we are hungry, we realizehow important this simple thing is.”

More than 2 billion Asians obtain60% of their calories from rice and itsderived products, according to FAO.In most Asian countries, the average

person con-sumes 150-200kg of rice per

year. Whilethe numberof chronically undernour-ished peoplein ASEAN fellrapidly be-tween 1971 and2002, some 66million people,or 13% of theregion’s popu-lation, still go

to bed hungry every night.

Althoughthe share of agriculture inthe GDP of ASEAN nations has beensteadily declining to around 11.5%, theproportion of the economically activepopulation in ASEAN dependenton agriculture is still over 50%,”said He Changchui, FAO’s assistantdeputy director-general and regionalrepresentative for Asia and thePacic. “They must meet the spiralingneeds of over 3 billion Asian people within less than a third of the world’sarable land.”

Brainstorming sessionIn India, the Directorate of RiceResearch (DRR) launched theInternational Year of Rice on 1January with a traditional Hindu worship service led by ProjectDirector B. Mishra, the chanting of

hymns from holy scriptures, and theplanting of a sapling. The afternoon was devoted to a brainstormingsession on the theme of Rice Researchfor the Future.

The Hyderabad-based DRR,the Indian Council of AgriculturalResearch (ICAR), and the CentralRice Research Institute (CRRI)in Cuttack have proposed severalactivities to mark the year, pendingapproval by Mangala Rai, secretary

of the Department of AgriculturalResearch and Education and ICAR director general, who also serves aschief patron of the International Yearof Rice organizing committee.

Scheduled for March was a groupmeeting on boro rice in Tripurafocused on developing high-yielding,high-quality rice suited for the boroseason.

April promises to be a busy month, beginning with an open day at DRR on 2 April, which is DRR Foundation Day, for displayingrice-production and crop-protectiontechnologies to the public. Annual ricegroup meetings in New Delhi on 11-14 April will focus on the progress madeand challenges to be met throughthe All India Coordinated Research

Program on Rice. Finally, the 8thNational Rice Biotechnology Networkmeeting in New Delhi on 15-17 Aprilis expected to attract 100 participantsengaged in basic and applied rice biotechnology research.

A 1-day national symposium onStrategies for Enhancing SustainableRice Exports, in Hyderabad in June, will attract 30 stakeholders in riceexports.

On 2-4 October, an international

Ringing in International Year of Rice


HUSKING RICE at the ASEAN celebration of International Year of Rice in Jakarta are( from left ) Ong Keng Yong, a farmer, He Changchui and Joko Budianto.



symposium on Rice: From GreenRevolution to Gene Revolution willtake place in Hyderabad with 200participants expected, including20 foreign delegates. Two specialawards will be announced at thesymposium. There are plans to release

a commemorative postage stamp on World Food Day on 16 October.

Thirty participants will takepart in a 1-day national seminar inNovember on Drudgery Reductionfor Women in Rice Farmingorganized by the National ResearchCenter on Women in Agriculture inBhubaneswar.

Meanwhile, state departmentsof agriculture and agriculturaluniversities are being encouragedto organize farmers days and othercelebrations at the state and regionallevel to generate awareness andtransfer available technologies torice farmers. On 4 February, theRice Research Station at Chinsurahmarked both the International Yearof Rice and its 50th anniversary with West Bengal Chief MinisterBuddhadeb Bhattacharjee and state Agriculture Minister Kamal Guha inattendance. Ten days later, the AllIndia Young Farmers Association

held a function in Haryana for 5,000farmers marking International Yearof Rice. R.K. Singh, IRRI liaisonscientist, was the keynote speaker,and the guest of honor was theJapanese agricultural attaché.

ICAR plans to produce severalspecial publications, including acomprehensive, multi-authoredtreatise on Rice Research and Development in India — Past and Future and another on rice

biotechnology.In addition, DRR and CRRI willpublish about 15special bulletinsand technical andresearch-paperseries.

China, the world’s largestrice producerand consumer,is planningan exhibition

on Chinese Rice Culture and Achievements in Rice Science andTechnology during the Asia andPacic Regional Conference of theFAO in Beijing on 17-21 May. Factsheets on rice science in China will spread the message, as will

International Year of Rice newspaperarticles, television programs, andlinks on the homepages of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences(CAAS) in Beijing and China NationalRice Research Institute (CNRRI) inHangzhou. Middle-school student visits to CNRRI are also planned.

Origin of rice A national Rice Production andFood Security workshop is slatedfor April in Hainan Province. Aninternational symposium on Scienceand Technology in Agriculture:Current and Future will be organized by CAAS and the World Food PrizeFoundation, to take place on 10-12July in Beijing. The Chinese capital will also be the venue in Septemberof an international workshop onThe Origin of Rice and Its Variety Development. CNRRI will organizean international symposium onSustainable Rice Production and

World Food Day on 15-18 Octoberin Hangzhou. Finally, rice scientists will return to Beijing in Novemberfor an international symposiumon Heterosis Application and RiceQuality.

On 10 January, CAAS set upa working group for International Year of Rice chaired by PresidentZhai Huqu, with Vice President QuDongyu ([email protected])serving as vice chairman, and

Department of InternationalCooperation Director General LiangQu as secretary general (Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences,No. 12 Zhongguancun Nandajie,Beijing 100081, China. Tel [86-10]68919476 [International CooperationDepartment]; fax [86-10] 62174060;

68975184). Membership includesCNRRI Director General ChengShihua, Institute of Crop SciencesDirector General Wan Jianmin, andKaijun Zhao, IRRI liaison scientist forChina ([email protected] [email protected]).

In the Philippines, IRRIcommenced its celebration of International Year of Rice witha concert on 19 January thatfeatured two of the country’s mostdistinguished international concert

pianists, Ingrid Sala Santamaria andReynaldo G. Reyes. The programincluded concerto excerpts fromTchaikovsky, Grieg and Liszt.

This was the rst of at least vemajor musical events planned to mark the year in the Philippines, includinga Rock for Rice concert in July led by IRRI, MTV Asia and FAO, anda Department of Tourism concertfor the World Heritage-listed riceterraces of Banaue in October. Alsoconnected with rice culture are rice-paper-making activities organizedfor April and May by the NationalCommission for Culture and the Artsand a year-long rice exhibit occupyingan entire oor of the NationalMuseum in Manila.

There will be several week-long

D R R

A L B E N A V E N T E


AT THE DIRECTORATE of Rice Research brainstorming session are ( from left ) S.V.Subbaiah, head of agronomy; C. Kesava Reddy, principal scientist in plant physiol-ogy; and B. Mishra, project director.

AFTER PERFORMINIRRI, pianists ( frIngrid Sala Santaand Reynaldo G. pose with Williamlina, IRRI deputygeneral for partnand his wife, Cris



events, including Rice Researchand Development Week led by thePhilippine Rice Research Instituteand the Bureau of AgriculturalResearch on 5-9 April; Rice andEnvironment Week in Juneorganized by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources;

National Scienceand Technology Week in July underthe Departmentof Science and

Technology and thePhilippine Councilfor Agriculture,Forestry and NaturalResources Researchand Development; Agriculture andFisheries Researchand Development Week in October led by the Departmentof Agriculture

and the Bureau of AgriculturalResearch; and UN Week on 18-24October organized by the UnitedNations Information Center with theDepartment of Education and theCommission on Higher Education.

The commission will alsoorganize a conference on rice farmingand biodiversity on 25-26 June.

In addition to the Department of Agriculture’s World Food Day events,October will see a rice fair organized by Agrilink and the Foundation for

Resource Linkage and Development,and an organic rice festival led by the Asian NGO Coalition for AgrarianReform and Rural Development.

In Myanmar, the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation and theMyanma Agriculture Service areheading up the national committeefor the year and planning exhibitionsat the Myanma Rice Research Centerin Hmawbi and the AgriculturalMuseum in Yangon. Plans were to

start one exhibition on 2 March, which is Myanmar Peasants’ Day.For more information, contact IRRI Administrative Coordinator Daw Ohnmar Tun ([email protected]) or the national coordinator,Dr. Tin Hla, at IRRI RepresentativeOfce, P.O. Box 1369, Yangon,Myanmar. Tel (95-1) 663590; fax (95-1) 642341.

Laos is planning several riceeld days for national VIPs includingmembers of Parliament, ministers

and provincial governors, as wellas for donors who missed a similarseries last October. The 10th ASEANSummit, with “plus three” countriesJapan, China and South Korea, willtake place in Vientiane in November.The Ministry of Agriculture andForestry is planning to organize elddays and other events for ASEANdelegates and other specially invitedguests including international donorsand IRRI representatives.


The World Rice Research Conference, organized by theJapanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fish-eries, will be the world’s leading scientic celebration

of the International Year of Rice. Including the 25th In-ternational Rice Research Conference, the event will bringtogether the world’s leading rice scientists to exchangeinformation on the latest research of potential benet tothe world’s 200 million rice farmers and the billions of consumers who depend on them for their daily rice.

The opening symposium and keynote speecheson 4 November in Tokyo will raise the main themes of

the conference. They are 1) innovative technologies for boosting rice production, 2) perspectives on the place of rice in healthy lifestyles, 3) adaptable rice-based systemsthat improve farmers’ livelihood, and 4) the role of ricein environmentally sustainable food security. English/Japanese simultaneous dual translation will be availableon the opening day. Scientic symposia in nearby Tsukubaon 5-7 November will take place in English.

Japanese parties co-organizing the conference along with IRRI, and under ministry leadership, are the JapanInternational Research Center for Agricultural Sciences(JIRCAS), National Agriculture and Bio-oriented ResearchOrganization, National Institute of AgrobiologicalSciences, National Institute for Agro-EnvironmentalSciences, National Institute for Rural Engineering,National Food Research Institute, and the ministry’sPolicy Research Institute.

Registration and further information are availableat www.irri.org/wrrc2004. The deadline for submittingabstracts for oral or poster presentations is 1 March.Contacts are:• Dr. K. Toriyama, JIRCAS ([email protected]), 1-1Ohwashi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8686, Japan. Tel (+81-29) 838-6345, fax (+81-29) 838-6342.

• Dr. K.L. Heong, IRRI ([email protected]),International Rice Research Institute, DAPO Box 7777,Manila, Philippines. Tel (+63-2) 580-5600 (ext. 2726), fax(+63-2) 580-5699.

Rice conference in Japan set for November


LAUNCHING INTERNATIONAL YEAR of Rice in Japan, Ren Wang (center ), IRRIdeputy director general for research, was one of three special speakers on therst day of a 21-23 January workshop in Tokyo titled “Sustainable use of agri-cultural resources and environment management with focus on the role of ricefarming.” The others were Keiji Kainuma (left ), member of the Science Councilof the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, and Dat VanTran (right ), executive secretary of the International Rice Commission at FAO.



Basic Experimental Designs and Data Analysis 1 3-7 May G McLaren/V Bartolome/

using IRRISTAT for Windows S Magadia

Scientic Writing and Presentation, IRRI HQ 2 17-28 May D Shires/A Arboleda

Introduction to the SAS System, IRRI HQ 1 21-25 Jun G McLaren/V Bartolome/

S Magadia

*Intensive English 1, IRRI HQ 12 5 Jul-10 Sep A Arboleda/D Gavino

Genetic Engineering, Food Safety & Awareness 1 Sep S Datta/D Gavino

Rice Production II 2 6-17 Sep V Bala/E Castro

Water Management 1 Oct B Bouman

Leadership Course for Asian Women in Ag R & D 2 8-19 Nov T Paris/G Zarsadias

Analysis of Unbalanced Data 1 15-19 Nov G McLaren/V Bartolome/S Magadia

*Intensive English 2, IRRI HQ 3 15 Nov-3 Dec A Arboleda/D Gavino

Grain Quality Management 1 TBA J Rickman/D Gavino

IN-COUNTRY COURSES

Grain Quality Management, Cambodia 1 TBA J Rickman

Grain Quality Management, Bangladesh 1 TBA J Rickman

Water Management, Myanmar 1 TBA J Rickman

Tractor Training, India 1 TBA J Rickman

Integrated Pest Management, Malaysia 2 TBA KL Heong

Integrated Pest Management, Vietnam 2 TBA KL Heong

Integrated Pest Management, Thailand 2 TBA KL Heong

Integrated Pest Management, Iran 2 TBA KL Heong

Rice Technology Transfer Systems in Asia (RDA) 2 TBA J Lapitan/G Zarsadias

TBA = to be arranged. * = after 5 pm classes only. For details, email [email protected].

CourseDuration

Target dateCoordinator(s)/

(wk) course facilitator

2004 IRRI GROUP TRAINING COURSES (TENTATIVE LISTING)


Entry is free and open tothe nationals of all FAO membercountries. Professional and amateurphotographers will compete inseparate categories. Plans not yetconrmed call for FAO DirectorGeneral Jacques Diouf to presentawards to the best three in eachcategory at a World Food Day specialevent in Rome on 16 October.

Participants may submit only one photograph, which should be recent and clearly tied to the“rice is life” theme. Entries shoulddemonstrate creativity and technicalskill in conveying the role of ricein food security, cultural heritage,indigenous knowledge, sustainablerice production, biodiversity,environment, scientic advancement,

labor and/or livelihood.Entries may be color or black-and-white but not multiple exposuresor composites. Images should not be manipulated or altered except by such darkroom (or equivalent digital)techniques as brightness, contrastand color adjustments, dodging and burning. Submitted prints shouldmeasure between 20x25 cm (8x10inches) and 30x40 cm (12x16 inches).

For more details on requiredsubmission specications, see

www.fao.org/rice2004/en/ph-001.htm.

Each photograph must beaccompanied by a completed andsigned entry form available at the Web site above. Participants in theprofessional category must includea bibliographical description and/orcurriculum vitae. FAO assumes allintellectual property rights, includingcopyright, on submissions and will ensure due recognition to thephotographer. Submitted materials

will not be returned.Entries should be forwarded by

registered mail or prepaid courier(write “no commercial value” on thepackage) — not by email . Addressentries to International Year of RiceSecretariat, IYR Global Photography Contest “Rice Is Life,” Room C-789,FAO, Viale delle Terme Caracalla,0100 Rome, Italy. The deadline forarrival at the secretariat is 15 June.

continued from page 27 CONFERENCES, MEETINGS AND WORKSHOPS

Event Contact Date/Location

Nutrient Management in Agricultural http://conference.ifas.u.edu/ 24-26 May / Teagasc Research

Watersheds — A Wetland Solution nutrient/index.html#meeting%20site Center, Ireland

Int'l Water Demand Management Conference [email protected], www.wdm2004.org 30 May-3 Jun / Amman, Jordan

IFDC 2004: Indigenous Resource [email protected], [email protected], 31 May-4 Jun / Dakar, Senegal

Development for the Fertilizer Sector www.ifdc.org

The 7th International Conference on Philippine [email protected], www.iias.nl/iias/ 16-19 Jun / Leiden-Amsterdam,

studies: The Philippines: Changing Landscapes agenda/icophil Netherlands

and Mindscapes in a Globalizing World

BIO 2004 International Biotechnology www.bio.org 6-9 Jun / San Francisco, USA

Convention and Exhibition5th International Postharvest Symposium [email protected], 6-11 Jun / Verona, Italy

www.soihs.it/postharvest2004

Agricultural Biotechnology: Finding Common NABC@cornell .edu 13-15 Jun / Guelph, Canada

International Goals

5th European Pesticide Residue Workshop [email protected], www.slv.se/eprw2004 13-16 Jun / Stockholm, Sweden

International Symposium: Food and Feed [email protected] lonie.be, Jun / Namur, Belgium

Safety in the Context of Prion Diseases” http://strat feed.cra.wallonie.be16-18

121st ASTA Annual Convention www.amseed.com/eventDetailLarge. 27-30 Jun / Philadelphia, USA

asp?id=24

7th International Symposium on Inorganic www.enaag.org 23-27 Jun / Wageningen,

Nitrogen Assimilation in Plants Netherlands

World Water & Environmental Resources [email protected], www.asce.org/ Jun-1 Jul / Salt Lake City, Utah

Congress 2004 conferences/ewri200427

COL’s 3rd (Biennial) Pan-Commonwealth [email protected], Jul / Dunedin, New Zealand

Forum on Open Learning www.col.org/pcf3 4-8

13th International Soil Conservation [email protected], 4-9 Jul / Brisbane, Australia

Organization Conference www.icms.com.au/isco2004Agricultural Biotechnology: International [email protected]. it, 8-11 Jul / Ravello, Italy

Trade and Domestic Production www.economia.uniroma2.it/conferenze/

icabr2004/Achieva%20Brochre%

203(blue)-03.pdf

Groundwater Quality 2004: 4th [email protected], 19-22 Jul / Waterloo, Canada

International Conference www.science.uwaterloo.ca/earth/

conference2004/gwrc/index.htm

American Phytopathological Society Annual [email protected], www.scisoc.org 24-28 Jul / Spokane, USA

Meeting; 4th International Weed

Science Congress

Soil and Water Conservation Society www.swcs.org 24-28 Jul / St. Paul, USA

Annual Conference

7th International Conference on Precision www.precision.agr i.umn.edu/ 25-28 Jul / Minneapolis , USA

Agriculture Conference

31st Annual Meeting of the Plant Growth www.grifn.peachnet.edu/ 31 Jul-4 Aug / Charleston, USA

Regulation Society of America pgrsa/events.html

American Society of Agricultural Engineers www.asae.org/meetings/ 1-4 Aug / Ottawa, CanadaAnnual International Meeting index.html



PEOPLE


cropping systems. The proposals appearedin A bird’s-eye view of rice improvemenin Taiwan and suggestions for further riceresearch, which Dr. Ma co-authored withTe-Tzu Chang and submitted to the IRRI

board in April 1960. A memorial service was scheduled

for 6 March at Oak Hill Memorial Parkin San Jose, California. Dr. Ma is survived

by Pauline Ma-Senturia, James Ma, Rose-Marie Twu, Yo-ling Ma and Paul Ma.● Robert E. Huke, former visiting scientist at IRRI over a span of 25 years and

author of a number of IRRI publicationsdied on 17 January in New Hampshire. He

was 78. Dr. Huke obtained his Ph.D. fromSyracuse University in 1953 and taught inthe geography department at Dartmouthfor 43 years, where he focused on foodand population problems, particularly in

Asia, beginning with doctoral research

in Myanmar. He was married to EleanorH. Huke and had three daughters and sixgrandchildren.● Klaas Tamminga, senior expert withthe Cultural Cooperation, Education andResearch Department of The NetherlandsMinistry of Foreign Affairs, and a key link

between the ministry and the CGIAR, died

in early February of cancer. He is survived by his wife, Titia, and two children.

Partners in progress

Mahiul Haque has been appointeddirector general of the Bangladesh

Rice Research Institute (BRRI). Dr. Haque joined BRRI as a scientic ofcer in 1973and has since helped develop 39 rice variet-ies. He succeeds Nurul Islam Bhuiyan

who will evaluate subprojects for the IRRI-led project Poverty Elimination ThroughRice Research Assistance before movingon to work on the National Action Plan forHybrid Rice in Bangladesh.

Achmad Suryana, an agriculturaeconomist, has been named director generaof the Indonesian Agency for AgriculturaResearch and Development. Dr. Suryana

was previously director general of theNational Food Crop Security Agency. Hereplaces Joko Budianto, who plans toteach at a Jakarta university.

K eeping up with IRRI staff

Sant Virmani, deputy head of IRRI’sPlant Breeding, Genetics and Bio-

chemistry Division, has donated P110,000(US$2,000) to the Crop Science Society of the Philippines (CSSP) to sustain an annualaward to Filipino scientists or experts whohave contributed signicantly to developingand disseminating hybrid crop technology.

The Dr. S. S. Virmani Award for Devel-opment and Dissemination of Hybrid Crop

Varieties in the Philippines will be presentedevery 2 years to a Filipino researcher, seedproduction expert or extensionist who hasexcelled in this eld. The winner will receive

a plaque of recognition and P10,000 cash.The inaugural prize was to be awardedthis year at the CSSP’s 35th annual scienticconference on 8-12 March in Davao City.

“I have worked at IRRI from 1970 to1972 and again from 1979 to the present todevelop and disseminate hybrid-rice tech-nology, primarily for the tropics,” said Dr.

Virmani. “Many Filipino colleagues at IRRIand outside of the institute have helped mein successfully accomplishing this goal.

“I will retire from IRRI in 2005,” he add-ed. “Before I do so, I have decided to make a


token contribution to the community of cropscientists in the Philippines by instituting theaward. I am thankful to the CSSP, in which

I have a life membership, for accepting theresponsibility to administer the award.”

The CSSP, founded in 1970, promoteshuman welfare through the organizationand dissemination of knowledge concerningthe nature, use, improvement and interrela-tionships of plants and their environment.

Yolanda Chen joined IRRI’s Ento-mology and Plant Pathology Division on12 January as an entomologist and host-plant-resistance specialist. Dr. Chen willdevelop rice varieties with enhanced insectresistance and design and evaluate strate-

gies for their sustainable deployment.Karl Goeppert, IRRI representativein Laos for the past 3 years, will relocate to

Baltimore, Maryland, at the end of May toassume responsibility for Christian Relief Services’ agricultural programs worldwide.

R.K. Singh, rice geneticist, planned toretire in March after 9 years as IRRI liaisonscientist in India.

Foad Moradi, Iranian Ph.D. scholarat IRRI in 1999-2002, received the Univer-sity of the Philippines Los Baños GammaSigma Delta Award in December for his

Group on International Agricultural Re-search and its member centers, includingIRRI, to graduate students in the Collegeof Agriculture of Guangxi University inNanning, China.

“I wish to broaden the knowledge of our agricultural students,” he said in an

email to IRRI on 15 January requestingteaching materials. “I very much enjoy thechallenge.”

Dr. Ma was dean of the College of Ag-riculture at National Taiwan University in1954-61. He left to become manager of a 5-

year project under the Food and AgricultureOrganization of the United Nations that ledto the founding of the College of Agricultureat the University of Liberia.

IRRI’s rst director general (1960-71),Robert F. Chandler, Jr., described Dr. Ma as“one of the ablest men in higher educationin agriculture in Asia.”

Dr. Ma is remembered at IRRI for hisproposal to conduct cooperative researchprojects in Taiwan (China) and other coun-tries in the Far East. This underlined theneed for localized basic research on rice dis-eases and how interbreeding cultivars with

wild rice species might improve resistanceand instill other desirable agronomic traits.

He also urged research on how cultivars,insects and weather interact under different

Last farewell for rst institute Board of Trustees

Paul Ma, the last surviving memberof IRRI’s founding Board of Trustees,

passed away in Kunming, China, on 29January. He was 97. Pao-chi Ma, to use hisChinese name, served on the IRRI board in1960-62 and last visited the institute duringits 40th anniversary celebration in 2000.

From 1999 until his death, Dr. Ma

taught as a volunteer a course on the func-tions and achievements of the Consultative

outstanding achievements and service toagricultural science. Dr. Moradi, a cropphysiologist, is a member of the scientic

board and head of plant physiology at theBiochemistry and Proteomics Laboratoryof the Agricultural Biotechnology ResearchInstitute of Iran.



NEW BOOKS


IRRI has added three new titles to itsinventory of more than 100 bookscurrently available on rice research.Check IRRI’s online publications

catalog found at www.irri.org/pubcat/pubcontents.htm for pricing and orderinginformation on these and other titles andfor announcements about additional new

books.

New Approach-es to Gall Midge

Resistance in Rice (edited by

J. Bennett etal; 200 pages) consolidatesresearchers’understand-

ing on rice gallmidge biology and ecology,insect-plantinteractions,and pest status and yield losses. The ricegall midge Orseolia oryzae is an impor-tant pest in Asia, as is O. oryzivora in Af-rica. Breeding resistant varieties has beena viable, ecologically acceptable approachfor managing the pest, but diversity inpest populations and rapid selection of

virulent biotypes of the insect requirenew approaches to studying gall midge

resistance in ricePut together during a workshop

that attracted many experts in the eld,this volume addresses 1) signicant ac-complishments in identifying sources of resistance and breeding resistant rice va-rieties in Asia and Africa, 2) pest diversity affecting the performance and durabil-ity of host-plant resistance as studiedthrough both conventional and molecularapproaches, and 3) the use of moleculartechniques in mapping genes and in devel-oping marker-aided selection protocols for

breeding durable resistance.

The Biogeochemistry of Submerged Soils (by G.Kirk; 304 pages), published by John Wiley & SonsLtd., describes the physical, chemical and biologicalprocesses operating in submerged soils and govern-ing their properties. Wetlands are of huge practicalimportance in global food production and elementcycles, and as centers of biodiversity. They are alsoscientically interesting because of their peculiar

biogeochemistry and the adaptations of plants andmicrobes.

This book explains the transport processescontrolling the uxes of gases and solutes through

the soil; the interchange of solutes between solid,liquid and gas phases; reduction and oxidation pro-cesses; biological processes in the soil and overlying

water; and processes in the roots and rhizospheresof wetland plants. The dynamics of nutrients, toxins,pollutants and trace gases are discussed in terms of these processes and in relation to wetland productivity and global element cycles.

Written by a former IRRI soil chemist renowned in the eld, this work will be invaluable to earth, environmental and agricultural scientists concerned withnatural or man-made wetlands, and to advanced undergraduate and graduatestudents of these topics. To order, go to www.wileyeurope.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-5271.html.

A Practical Field Guide to Weeds of Ricein Asia (by B.P. Caton et al; 116 pages)is a pocket-sized guide containing usefulinformation about the botany, ecology and

cultural control of weeds in a short textthat is easy to use in the eld. It includes95 color photographs to aid early and ac-curate species identication.

Weed infestations are a never-ending

concern for farmers. Rice farmers of simi-lar ecosystems across Asia, from Koreato Indonesia and Nepal, contend with asmall group of identical or similar weedspecies that includes many of the world’smost troublesome.

This guidegives farm-ers, extensionagents andresearchersa practical

in-eld meansof assessing

weed-controlproblems and,

where pos-sible, providesstrategies forimprovingintegrated weedmanagementin rice systems. It will help farmers betterunderstand how land preparation, riceestablishment methods and early-season

water-management practices inuence which particular weed species infest theirrice elds.

Rice Research and Development in the Flood-Prone Ecosystem (edited by S.

Bhuiyan et al) presents papers and majorrecommendations from a recent interna-tional workshop on Rice Research and De-

velopment in the Flood-Prone Rice Landsof South and Southeast Asia in Gazipur,Bangladesh. Participants discussed thehydrological, biological, agronomic andsocioeconomic perspectives of ood-pronerice environments; the challenges, pos-sibilities and strategies for improving theproductivity of rice lands in ood-proneenvironments; and issues and strategiesfor action.

The ood-prone ecosystem consists

of basins and lowland areas adjacent torivers in the humid and subhumid tropics

and in coastal areas subject to tide-induced ooding. This ecosystem is im-portant for many rice-producing countriesin South and Southeast Asia, where morethan 11 million ha are prone to uncon-trolled ooding. Globally, the ood-proneecosystem accounts for 9% of total ricelands, but in India, Bangladesh, Myanmar,

Vietnam and Thailand it can representmore than a quarter of total rice lands.



RICE FACTS


A sians eat rice daily, prompting

politicians and policymakers in

many countries to view imports

of the staple grain as a sign of national

failure. Leaving aside China and India,

where wheat is almost as important

as rice, analysis of historical rice trade

patterns supports a contrary view.

Countries are long-term members

of one club for rice importers or, barring

upheaval, another club for exporters.

This strongly suggests some deep force

at work. The reasons typically advancedfor failure to achieve rice self-sufciency

— faulty government policy, deterio-

rating irrigation systems, lack of farm

credit, inadequate fertilizer use — are

too short-term to explain such steadfast

club loyalty.

This deep force is land endowment.

Exporters occupy broad riverine deltas

and plains with lots of land suitable for

rice; importers are island or peninsular

nations with more varied landscapes

favoring such alternatives as maize,

oil palm or coconut. The percentageof crop area devoted to rice tells the

story. Figure 1 shows that consistent

rice importers plant less than half of

their crop area to rice, while countries

that plant more than half to rice are

consistent exporters (excepting Japan

and Bangladesh because of their tiny

area of arable land per person).

Malaysia is the Asian country most

reliant on rice imports, which account

for 30% of its consumption. Other

countries that import rice to meet a

signicant portion of demand, with

percentages averaged for 1996-2002,

are the Philippines (13%), Sri Lanka

(9%), Indonesia (6%) and Japan (5%).

Strikingly, all ve have consistently

imported rice for at least the past

century (Figure 2). The Philippines,

for example, has imported rice almost

every year since 1869. Java, thedestination for most of Indonesia’s rice

imports today, has been a rice importer

since the 16th century. Exports from

these traditional importers have been

sporadic and short-lived.

The history of Asian rice export-

ers is similarly consistent, though war

and ideological zeal complicated trends

in three of them following the 1960s.

Early in the 20th century, the countries

that exported the largest percentage of

their rice production were Myanmar,

Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam — all

mainland Southeast Asian countries

with large river deltas or plains. Today,

Thailand dispatches 40% of its crop

to world markets. Vietnam, having

bounced back from a quarter century of

scraping along, now exports a fth of its

rice production. Myanmar and Cambo-

dia have struggled more than Vietnam

but now appear set to redeem their

traditional roles as rice exporters.Traditional importers have invested

in irrigation systems to improve their

land for rice. They now irrigate a much

higher percentage of their rice land than

do exporters, but these increasingly

costly efforts have failed to eliminate

the need to import. Land endowment

remains the overriding factor that

determines whether a country imports

or exports rice.

Rice imports come with the territoryby D D

Economist

Exporters plant more than half of their crop area to rice — importers less than half

Fig. 1. Share crop area planted to rice, selected Asiancountries, 1990-2001. Data: FAO.

Fig. 2. Net trade status, selected Asian countries, 1905-2001.Note: The values shown are 5-year moving averages to smooth year-to-year uctuations. When imports exceed exports (+), net

trade status is expressed as a % of consumption. When exports exceed imports (–), net trade status is expressed as a % of

production. This convention avoids reporting values exceeding 100%. Gaps reect unavailable data.

*Indochina includes Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos until 1949 and Vietnam and Cambodia from 1951, with trends in Vietnam

dominating in both periods.



grain of truth

K.L. HEONG

Entomologist

Rice farmers, like most people, instinctively abhor bugs, especially in their elds. This makes them easy targets for those unscrupulous insecticide marketers

who exploit their fears. We have found that farmers wildly overestimate their real or potential losses to insect pests,usually by at least a multiple of 10, and that most of theirinsecticide applications are ineffectiveor even counterproductive, needlessly threatening their health, reducing their

income and polluting the environment.The good news is that sound advice to

help farmers avoid unnecessary spraying —simple rules of thumb widely disseminatedthrough popular media — can counteractthe irresponsible advertising that someinsecticide purveyors employ, sharply reducing farmers’ spraying without hurtingtheir harvest.

On-farm surveys in 10 Asian countriesshowed that farmers routinely spray insecticides, including those banned in the West as unacceptable hazards to humanhealth, early in the crop cycle to control leaf-feeding insectscollectively dubbed “worms.” Yet research has shown that young rice plants can lose 40% of their leaves — or morethan 4 times the damage typically caused by leaf-feeders — without suffering any yield loss. Detailed analyses of farmers’insecticide use in the Philippines and Vietnam showed that80% of their applications targeted the wrong insect at the wrong time and so offered no economic return.

Farmers able to make correct decisions about when and what to spray still face the problem of effective delivery.Even with optimal weather, spraying equipment and skills,a third of the spray lands uselessly on the ground. And the

reality is that the spraying equipment used by Asian ricefarmers is notoriously inefcient, emitting large dropletsthat immediately roll off the leaves. The result is that lessthan 2% of the insecticide sprayed on rice in Asia is likely toreach targeted insect pests. The rest contaminates the paddy water and soil, contributing to environmental pollution andkilling benecial insects and aquatic fauna. Under prevailingconditions in most of tropical Asia, rice farmers would be better off using no insecticides at all.

Ironically, predators of rice pests, such as spiders, are atgreater risk of pesticide poisoning than the pests themselves because they are more mobile. Similarly, parasites that target

pests are susceptible because they are small. Moreover, somepests pass their larval stage inside the rice plant, safely beyond the reach of sprays. Farmers’ insecticide applicationscan thus disrupt natural biological control mechanisms inrice ecosystems, perversely creating environments that favorpests. A clear link exists, for example, between excessive

insecticide use and outbreaks of brownplanthopper. A study in the Philippinesfound that three sprayings before maximum

tillering (or branching) resulted in 56 millionmore rice pests per hectare — and 14 millionfewer natural enemies.

In the Mekong Delta of southern Vietnam, we conducted a media campaignusing iers, posters, billboards and radiospots to encourage farmers to withholdinsecticides on part of their crop during therst 40 days after sowing and to compare theresult with the sprayed portion. Farmers inthe test area more than halved their sprayingfrom an average of 3.4 sprays per crop toonly 1.6 sprays. The subsequent Three

Reductions campaign additionally encouraged farmers toreduce their seed and fertilizer use to optimal rates, thereby saving input costs while discouraging insect pests. Thiscampaign saw the average number of insecticide applicationsper crop fall below one. Infestations of brown planthopper, which decimated local rice elds in the early 1990s, are now a thing of the past.

Pesticide-reduction campaigns in central Thailand andnorthern Vietnam have yielded similarly encouraging results, but our message has so far reached only a tiny minority of themore than 200 million rice farmers worldwide. Meanwhile,the pesticide industry continues its fear-based advertising,

threatening to undo the progress we have made and to spreadinsecticide misuse to the few areas still unaffected.

Laos is particularly vulnerable, wedged betweenpesticide-producing Vietnam, Thailand and China. Sofar, few Lao farmers use insecticides, but only for lack of supply. Like their counterparts elsewhere, they welcome easy “solutions” to their pest problems. Protecting them urgently requires a comprehensive policy to regulate the importation,manufacture and marketing of pesticides. Also needed areprograms to educate extension technicians and farmers onthe health hazards and ecological principles that governresponsible pesticide use.

Fear and loathing driveneedless insecticide use






Documents

RiceToday Vol. 3, No. 2