The International Rice Research Institute and its research partners are undertaking new activities to improve productivity, profitability and sustainability of rice farming, director general of the institute, Ronald Contrell, said. | |
| He described a four-fold challenge: developing more nutritious rice rich in essential micronutrients like iron, zinc, vitamin a, and protein; a new type of dry-field rice that reduces the amount of water used in rice cultivation thereby helping mitigate Asia's looming water crisis where farmers use unsustainable levels of up to 3,000 litres of water to produce 1 kg of rice; developing rice that withstands stresses such as drought or saline soils; and developing hybrid rice and other varieties that will provide higher yields for farmers and motivate private sector investment in developing improved varieties for farmers. |
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| He said that stability in the asian region, including in Indonesia and in the Philippines, is threatened by the continuing lack of development in the rice sector. |
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| Rice farming, he said, remains in a poverty trap in many Asian nations, mainly because of very small farm size. Adding to the misery of rice growers in the region is declining support for public rice research, one of the few proven avenues for improving the lives of rice farmers and consumers alike. |
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| Contrell said that in the early years of the Green Revolution, up to the early 1980s, the rice-producing nations of Asia enjoyed annual rice increases of 2.5 per cent and production gains of over 3 per cent. |
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| However, between the middle of the 1980s and the late 1990s, the rate of annual yield increase was nearly halved, and the rate of production increase fell even further. |
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| Recent research, he said, has shown that in 1999, for every US $ 1 million invested at the institute, more than 800 rural poor in China and 15,000 rural poor in India were lifted above the poverty line. These poverty-reduction effects were even greater in earlier years. |
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