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An information summary for supporters of international rice research

Published by the INTERNATIONAL RICE RESEARCH INSTITUTE Vol. 13 No. 1, March 2003

In this issue:

• 2004 declared International Year of Rice

• Water-saving technologies for Philippines

• Luzon rice farmers go clean and green

• Insecticide reduction project in Vietnam wins Golden Rice Award

• Partnership opens new chapter in gene discovery

• A new Green Revolution in South Asia

• Swiss-sponsored work on rice biodiversity to continue in Laos

• Workshop addresses problems of rainfed rice farmers in India

• Tungro overcome in Iloilo, study shows

• Crawford Fund hosts IRRI director general in Australia

• IRRI scientists receive awards from international societies

• New era in IRRI-Japan relationship

• IRRI bids farewell to agronomist

• Training Center enhances facilities

• Research publication gets new managing editor

• Rice Knowledge Bank featured in IT business weekly

2004 declared International Year of Rice
On 16 December 2002, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2004 the International Year of Rice and invited the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to facilitate its implementation. Mike Jackson, IRRI director for program planning and coordination, attended the FAO’s coordinating meeting for the International Year of Rice in Rome on 6-7 March, at which he presented the institute’s plans. Duncan Macintosh, head of the IRRI Visitors and Information Services, is the institute’s focal point for the International Year of Rice.

Water-saving rice technologies for Philippines
Philippine rice farmers - especially those hit by drought or dwindling water supplies - have fresh reason for hope because of research on a range of new rice technologies being developed to handle exactly these conditions. The rice is called “aerobic” because it is grown in soil where oxygen is present, unlike anaerobic soils, in which flooding drives out the oxygen. The rice was displayed, along with the management technologies needed to grow it, at a farmers’ field day held near Paniqui, Tarlac Province, on March 12. Attending the event was Philippine Secretary for Agriculture Luis P. Lorenzo, Jr.
The aerobic rice project is a joint effort involving farmers, the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), IRRI and the National Irrigation Authority, inaugurated its Deep Well Irrigation Project in the same district on the same day.
Already commercially grown in China and Brazil, aerobic rice has the potential to provide vital options to the Asian rice industry, which faces serious water shortages in many important rice-growing areas. Growing rice under conventional irrigation usually takes twice as much water as producing the same amount of wheat or maize. Some 3,000-5,000 liters of water are required to produce just one kilogram of rice, which partly explains why more than half of the water used in irrigated agriculture in Asia irrigates rice. As irrigated agriculture uses 90 percent of all diverted freshwater in Asia, rice irrigation alone uses about five times as much freshwater as all non-agricultural uses combined.
“Aerobic rice is just one technology we hope will help rice farmers deal with this new challenge,” said IRRI Director General Ronald Cantrell. “And we are especially pleased that some of the first farmers to benefit are right here in our host country, the Philippines.”
Dr. Cantrell explained that the Philippines is in an especially favorable position to exploit the latest water saving technologies because some improved upland varieties already developed by IRRI, the University of the Philippines Los Baños and PhilRice are suitable for aerobic conditions. These include Apo and UPLR1-5. 
Field experiments at IRRI and farmer participatory trials in central Luzon have found aerobic rice varieties for the tropics producing yields of 4-6 t/ha and water savings of around 50 percent compared with lowland rice. This year, farmer participatory trials were expanded to involve 29 farmers in Tarlac and Nueva Ecija. “We are very keen to harvest so we can see how these trials went compared to last year,” said Bas Bouman, IRRI water scientist and Tarlac aerobic rice project leader.

Luzon rice farmers go clean and green
Research reveals that rice growers in central Luzon in the Philippines use less insecticide than farmers in other major rice-growing regions in Asia. Compared to the situation in many other Asian rice bowls, where the use of insecticides and other chemicals remains high or is even increasing, insecticide use by rice growers in central Luzon has been falling since the late 1980s.
The trend has been confirmed in surveys by both the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) and IRRI. The research revealed that insecticide use by farmers in central Luzon, which peaked in the mid-1980s, is now at an historic low, though some farmers still use insecticides as a last resort to prevent serious crop loss. The research also shows that herbicide use peaked in the early 1990s and has slowly declined since then. Farmers continue to use herbicides more often than insecticides.

Particularly encouraging is the survey finding that, despite the steep decline in insecticide use, rice farmers in the region were able to increase their yields over the same period, seeing them rise from an average of 2.75 tons to close to 3.25 tons per hectare by 2002. “This result is testimony to the success and hard work of PhilRice and the other groups in the Philippines, who over many years have been promoting the use of integrated pest management,” commented IRRI Director General Ronald Cantrell.

Insecticide reduction project in Vietnam wins Golden Rice Award 
http://bulletin.irri.cgiar.org/bulletin/2003.1/bullimg/
Golden%20Rice%20awardee.jpg A project to motivate rice farmers in Vietnam to reduce insecticide use, known as the “No early insecticide spray project,” received the Golden Rice Award in Vietnam. The award was presented in Cantho City on 6 December 2002 by Vice Minister of Agriculture Nguyen Van Dang. 
The recipients of the award (a certificate and gold-plated plaque) were Nguyen Huu Huan, vice director general of the Plant Protection Department; Vo Mai, former vice director general of the department; M.M. Escalada, a professor at the Philippines’ Visayas State College of Agriculture now seconded to IRRI, and IRRI insect ecologist K.L. Heong.

In 1994, the IRRI-led research team found that much of farmers’ insecticide spraying was unnecessary. Most spraying early in the crop cycle targeted the rice leaf folder, whose feeding causes obvious damage to rice leaves but no effect on yield. This early spraying also kills spiders and other natural enemies of such pests as brown plant hoppers and so can lead to devastating outbreaks later in the cycle. In addition, the insecticides farmers used directly harmed their health and the environment. 
The team developed a mechanism to distill the complex scientific details into a simple rule of thumb - “No early insecticide spray” - and a communication process to motivate farmers to experiment with this novel information. “Scientific information bits by themselves may not be useful,” commented Dr. Heong. “Through understanding farmers’ decisions and integrating various information bits, mechanisms may be developed to motivate change.” 

Dr. Escalada, a communication scientist guiding the project, added, “The materials included a leaflet, a poster and a radio drama designed to deliver information in a motivational way.” Farmers’ average insecticide use in the Mekong Delta fell from 3.4 to 1.6 sprays per season - a 53% reduction that has been sustained in the subsequent eight years. 
A similar project partly supported by the St. Andrews Prize for Environment is under development in the northern Vietnamese province of Quang Ninh, with launch slated for World Environment Day on 5 June 2003.

Partnership opens new chapter in gene discovery
http://bulletin.irri.cgiar.org/bulletin/2003.1/bullimg/
IRRI-NIAS%20handshake.jpg IRRI entered into a landmark research and capacity-building agreement in December 2002 with Japan’s National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences (NIAS), paving the way for the next stage of discovery revealing the genetic makeup of rice. The partnership promises to unlock the secrets of functionality in the recently sequenced genome of the world’s main food grain, determining which genes strengthen plants against drought, problem soils, diseases and pests - and to do so for the benefit of the poor rice farmers and consumers. The memorandum of agreement came into force on 19 December 2002, when it was signed in Tokyo by IRRI Director General Ronald Cantrell and NIAS President Masaki Iwabuchi. It sets the terms for a five-year IRRI-NIAS collaboration designed, in the words of the agreement, “to apply genomics science and technologies to discover genes of agronomic interest, especially those involved in stress tolerance, and to build human resources that will enhance international partnerships in agricultural research and development in the developing world.”

The signing came the day after the official announcement - simultaneously made in Tokyo and Washington, D.C. - that the International Rice Genome Sequencing Project (IRGSP) had completed a highly accurate sequencing of the rice genome. NIAS has led the IRGSP consortium and played a major role in the project, sequencing nearly 60 percent of the genome of the japonica subspecies of rice.

A new Green Revolution in South Asia
A meeting in New Delhi on 28 February-3 March to discuss the future of the partnership combining India, IRRI, and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (Spanish acronym CIMMYT) brought together IRRI Director General Ronald Cantrell, CIMMYT Director General Masa Iwanaga, Agriculture Minister Shri Ajit Singh, and Mangala Rai, director general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and secretary of Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE). 
“The meeting focused on strategies for ecologically sustainable agriculture in the intensively cultivated, irrigated and poorly endowed lands of eastern India,” reported Dr. Rai. http://bulletin.irri.cgiar.org/bulletin/2003.9/
bullimg/Rice-wheat.jpg“ In the 1960s and ’70s, the historic Green Revolution helped avert a food crisis of epic proportions in South Asia,” observed Dr. Iwanaga. “Today, we stand on the brink of a very different but also quite serious crisis, as the very bases of food production - water and healthy soils - are at risk in this region.
“Hope and solutions are not just on the horizon - they are here,” he added. “Zero-tillage production systems, precision farming techniques, and other technologies refined and promoted by the Rice-Wheat Consortium can avert the degradation of water and soil resources and of the environment generally. Given the rapid spread of these technologies in the Indo-Gangetic plains, it is appropriate to call this a revolution - a new green revolution with an environmental emphasis on the green.”
Dr. Cantrell underscored these points, saying, “The rice-wheat system of South Asia is one of the world’s most important food production ecosystems, especially as it brings together some of the poorest farmers in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. We must make sure the rice-wheat farmers of South Asia continue to have access to the technologies they need to help ensure the region’s food security.”

Swiss-sponsored work on rice biodiversity to continue in Laos
Agreement between the government of Switzerland and IRRI for a second phase of the Lao PDR Rice Biodiversity Project ensures that work on rice biodiversity <http://bulletin.irri.cgiar.org/bullimg/LaosDiversity.jpg>will continue in Laos. Phase 2 aims to ensure that indigenous rice biodiversity and associated farmer knowledge are conserved, documented and used by researchers, extension workers and farmers. This will improve the livelihood of Lao rice farmers and the sustainability of their rice-based farming systems.
Under Phase 1 (1996-2000), 13,600 rice samples were collected from all over Laos. Under Phase 2, US$422,500 is earmarked for two PhD and three MSc students to work on rice biodiversity issues and research indigenous knowledge of rice farmers in Laos. Five IRRI Los Baños staffers will provide technical backstopping services to scientists from the Lao rice research system. The project is scheduled to run through 2005.

Workshop addresses problems of rainfed rice farmers in India
Thirty scientists from South and Southeast Asia attended the Consortium for Unfavorable Rice Environments (CURE) workshop on 24-25 January at the National Agricultural Science Center in Pusa, New Delhi. Organized by R.K. Singh, IRRI liaison scientist for India, the workshop aimed to identify technologies to help “cure” unfavorable environments, select appropriate research sites and collaborating institutions, and prioritize research areas. Unfavorable environments are rainfed areas that suffer water scarcity or flooding.

Most of CURE’s six working groups, which are based on the major rainfed subecosystems, have held planning meetings. IRRI Deputy Director General for Research Ren Wang led a group of IRRI scientists attending the October meeting of the working group on shifting and rotational systems in Luang Prabang, Laos.

Tungro overcome in Iloilo, study shows
The government of Iloilo Province in the Philippines reported that participatory research conducted through its Dapitsaka program has helped farmers overcome tungro infestation. In a conference in Iloilo on 12 February with provincial and town agriculturists and experts from IRRI and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), Dapitsaka coordinator Elias Sandig said the 2,000 ha of paddy that had been infested with tungro four years ago now show no sign of the disease. 
Dapitsaka, short for dapitanay sa kaumhan (community cooperation at the farm), began in 2000 after then Governor (now Representative) Arthur Defensor sought the help of PhilRice and IRRI following severe tungro infestation. Iloilo - particularly the rice growing towns of Pototan, Mina, Barotac Nuevo, Ajuy and Concepcion - reported complete losses from 2,000 hectares in the 1999-2000 cropping season. At an average harvest of 4.5 metric t/ha, the total loss in Iloilo from tungro alone likely came to 9,000 tons. Both rice institutes recommended 12 varieties for farmers to try in towns where the viral attacks had occurred. 
Participants in the study - provincial government, towns, PhilRice, IRRI and farmers - shared the assumption that the old variety, IR64, had become vulnerable to tungro over the years and needed to be replaced. The new strains introduced in Dapitsaka pilot farms are tungro-resistant sister strains of IR64 that retain the popular cultivar’s high yield and good eating quality. IRRI and PhilRice also introduced strains that tolerate high iron toxicity. The provincial agriculture office found seven of them suitable for Iloilo, but the National Seed Board has so far classified only one, Dapitsaka 7, as a variety for national propagation.
Dapitsaka aims to provide to farmers a list of alternative cultivars for replacing IR64. “We don’t force farmers to adopt a particularly variety,” said Sandig, who added that some farmers in Pototan reverted to IR64 after the tungro virus disappeared.

Crawford Fund hosts IRRI director general in Australia
IRRI Director General Ronald Cantrell in January traveled to Australia, in the first visit to this key donor by an IRRI director general in almost a decade. He was invited by the Crawford Fund <http://www.crawfordfund.org> to attend a strategic planning workshop on future funding for agricultural research. Dr. Cantrell also visited Canberra, where he met with two of IRRI’s most committed donors, the Australian Center for Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and AusAID. 

IRRI scientists receive awards from international societies
Sant Singh Virmani, plant breeder and deputy head of IRRI’s Plant Breeding, Genetics and Biodiversity Division, received the 2002 International Service in Crop Science Award at a 12 November luncheon of the Crop Science Society of America in Indianapolis, Illinois. The award recognized Dr. Virmani’s 23 years of work in developing and disseminating hybrid rice in the tropics. Dr. Virmani has provided convincing evidence of the potential for growing hybrid rice under irrigation in the tropics and has developed and shared this technology, which achieves 1-1.5 t/ha higher yield under farmers’ conditions.
Jagdish K. Ladha, IRRI soil fertility and plant nutrition specialist, was made a Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy at a concurrent event in Indianapolis. Dr. Ladha works with the Rice-Wheat Consortium, an ecoregional initiative of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research that aims to enhance the productivity of rice and wheat in a sustainable manner. 

New era in IRRI-Japan relationship 
The end of January saw the retirement of Hiroyuki Hibino as IRRI liaison scientist in Japan and the closure of the IRRI-Japan office in Tsukuba. For now, IRRI’s chief contacts in Japan are the two Japanese members of its Board of Trustees, Keijiro Otsuka and Shigemi Akita. The refocusing of the IRRI-Japan relationship emphasizes close research collaboration, mobilization of new resource opportunities and heightened public awareness. 

IRRI bids farewell to agronomist
Virendra Pal Singh, an agronomist with 30 years’ service to IRRI, has left the institute to establish the South Asia Office of the World Agroforestry Center (formerly the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry, or ICRAF). During a Consortium for Unfavorable Rice Environments workshop in January, R.K Singh, IRRI liaison scientist for India, commended Dr. Singh for his contributions to the rainfed-rice systems of eastern India.

Training Center enhances facilities
The IRRI Training Center has enhanced its physical facilities. All training rooms now have a multimedia projector, overhead projector and video player. New lounges in the hallway offer a place to relax during breaks, and a newly installed phone booth enables trainees to call home. The auditorium can accommodate up to 30 participants and is equipped with at least 10 computers. 

Research publication gets new managing editor
International Rice Research Notes (IRRN), IRRI’s biannual research journal, installed Tess Rola as its new managing editor in January, replacing Katherine Lopez. Shaobing Peng and Bas Bouman stepped down from the editorial board after more than three years and were replaced by Abdel Ismail and Renee Lafitte. J.K. Ladha continues as editor-in-chief. This year marks the 28th consecutive year of the publication, which makes it the longest running periodical at the IRRI. Since 1998, the IRRN has also been accessible on line via the IRRI website.

Rice Knowledge Bank featured in IT business weekly
http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20030106/
indcomp2.shtml The Rice Knowledge Bank was featured recently in Express Computer, which is billed as India’s top IT business weekly. “We are finding that a much broader audience is accessing the Knowledge Bank website than we had anticipated,” said Albert Atkinson of the IRRI Training Center. “These include university professors, students and even some who are coming to our site to see how we did it, so they can get their own knowledge repository built.”

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