SEARCA Policy Brief Series 2005-10

Did it ever occur to you where rice came from?

Myths tell us that as early as 4000 years ago, the Chinese cultivated rice and later it was introduced to India, where the natives saw this plant and started tinkering this crop for food.

Much later, this rice trekked all the way to America through a certain ship captain who docked in Charleston South Carolina harbor. The man who received it planted it and in 1726, the place harboring it started to export rice. Today, in various parts of the globe, rice has flourished and has become a basic staple food to many.

In the Philippines and in most of Asian countries, rice is part of the day's main meals, 365 days a year.

Aiming at a never-ending supply of rice is not just a simplistic "Let's plant rice today and harvest in 120 days." There's more to it than meets the eye.

Dr. Robert Zeigler1, Director-General of Los Baños, Laguna-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), says that 10 to 20 years from now, IRRI will be facing head-on four major challenges. These are poverty alleviation, sustaining and maintaining the environment, human health and nutrition, and scientific capacity to address these challenges.

Alleviating poverty and maintaining human health

Rice is grown by farmers mostly from rainfed areas which are prone to erratic rainfall, flooding, and ironically, drought. And even if rice would grow and produce grains, the yield would barely enable the farmers to survive until the next cropping.

However, with the present "revolution in genomics" Zeigler says that much can be done to make rainfed areas more productive. To reduce poverty, Zeigler says that other cash crops need to b e explored. "…we look on the revolution in genomics being a tool to allow us to provide flexibility to farmers and get them out of that poverty trap."

Moreover, large areas in Asia have been reported to be malnourished. By using biotechnology, scientists can enrich the nutritional value of the crop and address malnutrition.

Sustaining environment

Rice farming needs a lot of water, nutrients, protection from pests, etc. Science's part in lightening the load of rice farming on the environment is to find measures to reduce water, nutrient, chemicals, and green gases emissions so that these will not be too damaging on the environment.

Water-saving technologies, nutrient uptake, and environmentally-friendly pest management practices can be explored. Zeigler points out that "The real challenge than is to understand how to get farmers to go to their fields and monitor their crops; there are many alternatives to their time and the opportunity costs of some of the intensive management systems are going to be a challenge to us."

Scientific capacity

Aiming at a never-ending supply of rice for the peoples of Asia is an intricate goal. Zeigler opines that policy issues and concerns "are completely interwoven" with poverty, human nutrition/health, environment, and scientific factors. Thus, "there's a tremendous opportunity and it is absolutely essential for the technical scientist to work very closely with the economists, social scientists, and policy specialists to make sure that we get our technical solutions right so they fit within the policy context and therefore would stand a much better probability of being adopted."

(1) From his paper presented during the SEARCA International Conference on "Agricultural and Rural Development in Asia: Ideas, Paradigms, and Policies Three Decades After" held on 10-11 November 2005 in Makati City, Philippines.

by Lorna C. Malicsi, Knowledge Management Unit