Los Baños, The Philippines
October 16, 2000

Millions of poor rice farmers and consumers could miss out on important new breakthroughs in agricultural research unless more is done to recognize the special status of rice as the food that
feeds most of the world's needy.

This warning has been issued by a leading group of scientists from the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) including its former deputy director general for research, Dr. Kenneth Fischer; geneticist Dr. Hei Leung; World Food Prize laureate Dr. Gurdev Khush; and the Institute's present director general, Dr. Ronald P. Cantrell. Together with Dr. John Barton, a law professor specializing in intellectual property rights at Stanford University in the United States, the scientists made their call in an article published in the 13 October issue of the American magazine Science.

"For rice, many of the products with high potential for alleviating poverty will not be those that attract ... private sector investment," the scientists wrote. Because of this, they have called for a new system that would better serve the poor and encourage greater investment and innovation in the rice industry by both the private and public sectors. Despite being arguably the single most important economic activity on the planet, rice production has largely been ignored by the private sector because of the poverty of most rice farmers. As a result, rice research, when compared with research on other crops such as wheat or maize, has not received significant attention and support from the private sector.

"The challenge is to develop a shared vision for rice research that will provide the public sector with access to modern scientific tools while at the same time giving sufficient incentives for the private sector to innovate, develop, and deliver new rice technologies," the scientists said. "The human genome project has already developed a pattern for such collaboration in genomics whereby ten pharmaceutical companies and the Wellcome Trust have agreed to fund and create a publicly available archive of human genetic variation. A similar pattern of collaboration is needed in rice."

Speaking after the publication of the Science article, Dr. Cantrell said that poor rice farmers need and deserve the best science has to offer and that includes technologies developed by the private sector. "However, while we want to encourage the private sector to invest in research that will help rice farmers and consumers, patent protection should not be allowed to deny poor people access to such much needed modern technologies. "What we would like to see is the application of zero royalties for any research product made available to subsistence farmers," Dr. Cantrell added. "However, royalties should be acceptable if the product is aimed at the commercial market, as this will be the only way for private companies to recoup their research investment."

The scientists also insist that, in addition to allowing the use of such work in the developing world, it is essential that any data and materials be freely available to researchers. "What we advocate for rice that is unorthodox is an arrangement in which the specific rights for new inventions derived from biological assets are held by the public sector," the scientists said. "We also seek access for the limited use of such products in the developing world."

Dr. Cantrell said that the products of rice research should be considered international public goods that are freely available to poor farmers in developing nations. "But to encourage companies to invest more in rice research, they should be allowed to profit from the use of any such products in commercial rice production in the developed world." The scientists warned that, without such a system in place, public research institutions such as IRRI would find it increasingly difficult to meet the food security needs of the world's burgeoning population of rice consumers. "We would also be sentencing many rice farmers and consumers to continued poverty," Dr. Cantrell said.

In Asia, the total demand for cereals is expected to increase 35 percent by 2010. This means the average yield achieved by the estimated 250 million Asian farmers has to be raised from the current 5.0 tons per hectare (under irrigation) to around 8.0 tons per hectare--a level close to the current maximum achievable yield.

Another challenge is to increase the productivity of unfavorable rice-producing regions, which account for 40 percent of the rice lands in Asia and most of the rice grown in Africa. It is in these diverse and unfavorable soil and water environments where poverty and uncertain food supplies are widespread. "If biotechnology is to have an impact on the lives of the poor, it must focus on the problems in these areas of too much and too little water, soil toxicity, low soil fertility, and inadequate grain quality and nutrition," the scientists said.

For decades, almost all rice research has been done by the public sector through national and international agricultural research centers such as IRRI. The private sector has played only a small role in the development and delivery of rice technology in the tropics, in contrast to what it has done for other crops such as wheat and maize. However, recent advances in biotechnology and large investments by the private sector mean that the balance between the public and private sectors is changing in rice research and companies can be expected to play a bigger and bigger role.

"We see this as a very positive trend," Dr. Cantrell said. "But we have to make sure that mechanisms are in place that protect the interests of poor farmers and consumers."

IRRI, with its headquarters in the Philippines and offices in 11 other countries, is the world's leading international rice research and training center. It is an autonomous, nonprofit institution that is focused on improving the well-being of present and future generations of rice farmers and consumers, particularly those with low incomes, while preserving natural resources. IRRI is part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), an association of public and private donor agencies that funds 16 international research centers.

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