Los Baños, Philippines – The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is calling on the international community – with particular emphasis on donors - to start focusing on solutions to what’s being described as a “rice price crisis” in Asia and elsewhere.
The Institute’s Board of Trustees met this week at IRRI’s headquarters in the Philippine city of Los Baños, and looked at six key issues seen as vital to increasing rice production in Asia. Increased production is needed to ease the sharp rise in rice prices that has swept across the region causing uncertainty and concern
“The problems related to rice production and supply in Asia over the past year or more are cause for serious concern, but not for panic,” said Prof. Elizabeth Woods, the newly appointed chair of IRRI’s Board of Trustees. “IRRI and its partners solved similar rice production problems in Asia in the 1960s and 70s and we can do it again – what we need is the committed support of donors and policy makers as well as better awareness among the media and general public of the problems we face.”
The Institute is calling for increased focus – from both the public and private sectors - on the following six key areas:
- An agronomic revolution in Asian rice production to reduce existing yield gaps. Farmers have struggled to maximize the production potential of the rice varieties they are growing, so there is a gap between the potential yield and the actual yield. Farmers must improve their crop management skills so they can better deal with higher input prices.
- Accelerate the delivery of new post-harvest technologies. Post harvest includes the storage, drying and processing of rice. Exciting new technologies exist for on-farm storage and drying that are not being widely used. The use of old, inadequate technologies causes major post-harvest losses in rice.
- Accelerate the introduction of higher yielding rice varieties. New varieties exist that could increase production, but farmers are not using them mainly because the system(s) that develop and introduce new varieties to farmers are under-resourced.
- Strengthen and upgrade the rice breeding and research pipelines. Funding for the development of new rice varieties has steadily been reduced over the past decade or more – this must be reversed. Likewise, record high fertilizer prices and new pest outbreaks demand that rice crop and resource management research need urgent revitalization.
- Accelerate research on the world’s thousands of rice varieties so scientists can tap the vast reservoir of untapped knowledge they contain. Working with IRRI, the nations of Asia have spent decades carefully collecting the region’s thousand of rice varieties. There are now more than 100,000 rice varieties being carefully managed and utilized at IRRI and in the nations around Asia. However, scientists have only studied in detail about 10 per cent of these varieties. We need to urgently learn more about the other 90 per cent so they can be used in the development of new rice varieties.
- Develop a new generation of rice scientists and researchers for the public and private sectors. Another vital concern for the Asian rice industry is the education and training of young scientists and researchers from each rice-producing country. Asia urgently needs to train a new generation of rice scientists and researchers before the present generation retires.
IRRI Board member and Philippine Secretary of Agriculture, Arthur C. Yap used the meeting at IRRI to call for a ministerial level meeting of Asian nations to discuss the global rice situation. He said the meeting should include developed and developing countries and focus on increased collaboration to deal with the problems facing rice production and the need for increased food aid in the interim.
“We must address the plight of food poor families in the countries most affected by the rice price crisis,” Secretary Yap said.
Prof Woods said: “The problems facing rice production in Asia are not unique to one country; they are shared by nearly all the rice consuming nations of Asia. We need to work together to find the right solutions.”
“We must also recognize the global scale of the problem, especially the fact that many African nations depend on Asian rice production for their food security.”
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is the world’s leading rice research and training center. Based in the Philippines, with offices in 13 other countries, IRRI is an autonomous, nonprofit institution 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 one of 15 centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), an association of public and private donor agencies (www.cgiar.org).
For information, contact Adam Barclay, IRRI, DAPO Box 7777, Metro Manila, Philippines; tel +63-2-580-5600; fax: +63-2-580-5699; email irrimedia@cgiar.org .
Web sites:
IRRI Home www.irri.org
IRRI Library http://ricelib.irri.org
Rice Knowledge Bank www.knowledgebank.irri.org
Rice Today magazine www.irri.org/ricetoday