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Global food situation at a crossroads

IRRI BOARD Chair Elizabeth Woods. eclining agricultural productivity and continued growing demand have brought the world food situation to a crossroads. Failure to act now through a wholesale reinvestment in agricultureincluding resea rch into improved technologies, infrastructure development, and training and education of agricultural scientists and trainerscould lead to a compared with 23% during the Green long-term crisis that makes the price Revolution period of 1967-90. Based spikes of 2008 seem a mere blip. on projected income and population This stark warning, in line with growth, annual productivity growth calls from organizations such as the of almost 1.5% will be needed at least World Bank, the World Food Program, until 2020. and Asian Development Bank (ADB), The meeting coincided with the was issued by members of the Board of release of a report by the Food and Trustees (BOT) of the International Rice Agriculture Organization of the United Research Institute (IRRI) following Nations stating that higher food prices their meeting on 16-19 September at are partly to blame for the number of Institute headquarters in Los Baos, hungry people growing by 75 million to Philippines. around 925 million worldwide. The global community needs to Higher prices have already forced remember two key things, said BOT the Philippine government to scale Chair Elizabeth Woods. First, that down efforts to overcome malnutrition growth in agricultural productivity among children. The government has is the only way to ensure that people cut its Food for School Program from have access to enough affordable food. the top 40 food-poorest provinces to Second, that achieving this is a long- the top 20. The country, which was term effort. A year or two of extra the worlds largest importer in 2007, is funding for agricultural research is expecting to import around 1.5 million not enough. To ensure that improved tons of rice in 2009. technologies ow from the research and Another ADB report, released development pipeline, a sustained re- in September, argued that, for Asian investment in agriculture is crucial. countries to prevent future food price Dr. Woods pointed out that the surges, agriculture needs wide-scale annual rice yield growth rate has structural reform and that, w ith dropped to less than 1% in recent years, demand remaining higher than supply, any supply shock would f ur ther RICE VENDORS at a market in Manila, Philippines. i ncre a se c ere a l prices. Although the export price of rice has settled from more than US$1,000 per ton in May to around $700 per ton, it is still double the pr ic e of 1 ye a r ago. The higher prices, along Rice Today October-December 2008

Export prices for rice US$/ton 1,100 1,000 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 Mar-08 May-08 Nov-07 Sep-07 Sep-08 Jan-08 Jul-08
US 2/4% Thai 100%B Viet 5% Pak Irri-25% Thai A1 Super

CHRISANTO QUINTANA

Source: FAO Rice Price Update October 2008

with favorable weather, helped boost planting area and production in several countries, including India and Pakistan. India is maintaining its export restrictions on non-Basmati varieties, although there is talk of eliminating or loosening them in the coming months. Despite a 7.4% drop in volume because of export restrictions, high prices allowed Vietnam to earn around $2.4 billionup almost 90% from 2007from rice exports in the rst nine months of 2008. Thailand, one of the few major exporters not to impose restrictions, was on track to hit 10 million tons of exports this year. From January to 18 September, Thailand exported 8.08 million tons of rice, a 39% jump over the same period in 2007. At $4.91 billion, the value of exports was more than double that for the same period in 2007. The current crisis serves as a timely wake-up call for governments, multilateral organizations, and donors to refocus on agriculture. Various national and international bodies have called for a second Green Revolution one that needs to increase productivity sustainably, with ever-fewer resources to feed the world in the face of a growing population and shrinking land base for agricultural uses.
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JOSE RAYMOND PANALIGAN

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Food shortages as rat plague spreads

Major biotech event for Thailand

eople living in the bordering areas of India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar continue to struggle against the rat plague that is destroy ing their rice production. The rat populat ion in t his a rea ex plodes every 50 years or so in parallel with the flowering of a native species of bamboo, which provides food for the rodents. When the bamboo supplies KEN APLIN/CSIRO are exhausted, the rats turn to the regions rice elds (for more, see Preparing for the rat race on pages 34-35 of Rice Today Vol. 6, No. 3). Mizoram State in India, Chin State in Myanmar, and the Chittagong Hill Tract in Bangladesh have all been affected badly. An August report by the Chin Human Rights Organization estimates that around 200 villages

are affected by severe food shortages and more than 100,000 people are in need of immediate food aid. In Mizoram, around 150,000 families have been affected. According to the Mizoram government, the states rice harvest was decimated, dropping from 73,600 tons in 2005 to around 8,500 tons in 2007. The Austra lian A ge n c y f o r I nt e r national Development contributed US$400,000 in humanitarian aid to Bangladesh for the Chittagong Hill Tract through the World Food Program and the United Nations Development Program. However, it is anticipated that substantial further assistance will be required to help the affected people get back on their feet.

inistries, government agencies, and the private sector will join forces in Thailand to stage one of Asias largest-ever biotechnology events in Bangkok on 25-27 November 2008. The Thailand Center of Excellence for Life Sciences, together with the National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology and exhibition organizer Pico (Thailand), will stage BioAsia 2008, a major international biotechnology conference and exhibition. The event aims to stamp Thailand as an Asian biotechnology hub by bringing together more than 5,000 researchers, academics, investors, and commercial developers of biotechnology products at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre, as well as more than 40 distinguished speakers from around the world. Dr. Juan Enriquez, the Founding Director of the Harvard Business School Life Sciences Project and author of the global bestseller As the Future Catches You, will deliver a keynote address at the event. M ore infor mation is av ailab le at www.bioasiabangkok.com or by emailing [email protected].

$500,000 donation for IRRI

IRRI has received a donation of materials worth $500,000 from 5 PRIME, a Germany-based company that produces technologies and reagents for molecular biology applications. The donation includes technologies and reagents for DNA isolation, amplication, and molecular analysis and will strengthen IRRIs research capabilities in its work to achieve more efficient and cheaper rice production, including the development of drought-tolerant rice varieties. We are very proud to support this extremely important research mission with our technologies, said 5 PRIME chief executive ofcer Bernd Haase. Molecular biology is one of the keys to generating scientic advances that may not only reduce hunger in developing countries but also spark their subsequent economic growth and ultimately lift more people out of poverty.
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Vietnam ood plan

The Vietnamese government plans to spend around $146 million between now and 2010 to build dikes and relocate thousands of rice farmers because of heavy seasonal flooding in its fertile Mekong River Delta. The program would help 33,000 families resettle in areas away from landslides and oods. About one-fth of Vietnams 86 million people live in the Cuu Long (Mekong) River Delta, which produces more than half of the countrys paddy output and supplies more than 90% of its commercial rice. Funding will come from the state budget, grants, and loans from the state-run Vietnam Development Bank. Floods arrive between August and November each year in the Delta.

Yield gene discovered

A team of scientists has identied a gene that controls the size and weight of rice
Rice Today October-December 2008

grains. The study, by Chinese and U.S. researchers, shows that it is possible to increase rices yield by enhancing the expression of a particular gene. The scientists initially found strains of rice that exhibited underweight grains. In one such strain, the cause was identied as a mutation in the GIF1 gene, which is responsible for controlling the activity of invertase, an important enzyme involved in the formation of starch within developing grains of rice. If invertase is inactive, the rice plant cannot produce edible grains. Invertase activity in the mutant strain was only 17% of that in the normal strain. The team then created transgenic lines of rice in which GIF1 is overexpressed and found that, compared with normal strains, the rice had larger and heavier grains. The study was published on 28 September in an early online edition of Nature Genetics, and will be featured in the journals November print issue.

Myanmar recovering after cyclone

mproved agricultural productivity can help developing countries reduce their reliance on emergency food relief following natural disasters. This is one of the conclusions of a team of IRRI scientists who visited cyclonedevastated Myanmar in August. C y c l o n e Na r g i s d e v a s t a t e d Myanmars Ayeyarwaddy (Irrawaddy) Delta area on 2-3 May, leaving more than 140,000 people dead or missing and causing an estimated 1.2-millionton (6%) drop in rice production, jeopardizing the countrys food security and exports. In hard-hit areas closer to the coast, planted area was down 25% because of a lack of labor, infrastructure, equipment, and draft animals. On 26 and 28 Aug ust, IR R I scientists T.P. Tuong, David Johnson, Abdelbagi Ismail, Grant Singleton, and Ruben Lampayan met in Yangon with representatives from the United Nations Development Program, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Myanma Agriculture Service (MAS) to discuss IRRI's role in plans to increase
GRANT SINGLETON

rice production during the coming dryseason crop and the 2009 wet-season crop. On 27 August, the team visited two townships (Kun Yangon of Yangon Division and Daedaye of Ayeyarwaddy Division) in Nargis-affected areas. U San Nyunt, general manager of MAS Seed Division, said that the key rice needs of Myanmar are more fertilizer for high-yielding varieties and improved production of high-quality seed. The government has asked IRRI for seeds of salt-tolerant rice varieties, and the MAS Seed Division needs equipment to monitor salinity levels in farmers elds and on seed farms. Salt-tolerant high-yielding varieties will be important, particularly to replace the low-yielding varieties being grown in coastal areas. IRRI plans to provide some of its more than 800 salt-tolerant breeding lines for testing by MAS. IR R I, t hroug h t he Ir r igated Rice Research Consortium and the Consortium for Unfavorable Rice Environments, will provide guidance on best-management options. The Institute

A FARMER shows the height of the Cyclone Nargis tidal surge.

also plans to support Myanmars work to improve seed storage and can help farmers save irrigation fuel costs through the use of water-saving technologies. A disaster of Nargiss scale will hurt any country, said Dr. Tuong, but a robust and efcient agricultural sector helps people get back on their feet faster and with less need for emergency aid.

Rice in blood pressure?

Scientists from Tokyo University have developed transgenic rice plants with high levels of nicotianamine (NA), a substance that inhibits the function of a key enzyme involved in hypertension (high blood pressure). Inhibition of angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) leads to reduced hypertension, the leading cause of cardiovascular disease and cerebral stroke, affecting around 1 billion individuals worldwide. The scientists found that NA derived from the transgenic rice strongly inhibited ACE activity, even compared with commercially available antihypertensive medicine. The work appears in the September 2008 issue of Plant biotechnology journal.

prior to field use. Launched in the Philippines on 12 August by Philippine Department of Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, the kit has potential across Asia, where zinc deciency is an increasingly important problem in rice production. The kit, developed by IRRI scientists Jack Jacob and Sarah Beebout, provides a rapid color-chartbased test to determine the zinc content of zinc sulfate fertilizer, without the need for a laboratory or electricity.

is believed to be the inner city of the kingdom. Excavations are conducted jointly by the Sri Lankan Archaeological Department and the Archaeological Institute of Germany.

Terraces lose development fund

The Philippine Department of Tourism (DOT) has turned down a plan to develop the Ifugao rice terraces. A $930,000 proposal to develop a tourist village in the area was not included in the proposed 2009 budget because it would push the department beyond its budget ceiling for next year. The DOT had proposed the purchase of 25 hectares of rice terraces for the village. Many farmers were no longer tending their terraces because doing so is no longer economically viable. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has included the rice terraces on its list of world heritage sites since 1995.
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2,300-year-old rice
A pot of rice has been recovered from a soil layer believed to belong to the 3rd century BC from the archaeological site in Tissamaharamaya, Sri Lanka. The soil layer, 4.5 meters below the surface, recently yielded ruins of a residential complex of noblemen. Tissamaharamaya is believed to have been the capital of the Magama Kingdom in Ruhuna, and Akurugoda, the site of the excavations,
Rice Today October-December 2008

New zinc test

A new zinc fertilizer test kit enables buyers, distributors, and researchers to evaluate the purity of their zinc fertilizer

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Boost for troubled farmers

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) will provide $500,000 to increase rice production in conict- and ood-affected districts of Sri Lanka. The project Input supply to vulnerable populations under Initiative on Soaring Food Prices has been funded in response to a request by the Sri Lankan government for assistance in combating the soaring food prices. FAO will provide funds to renovate 6,000 hectares of former rice land and distribute seed to the farmers in the problem areas. Six hundred metric tons of certied seed will be distributed to the target families in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture in Batticaloa, Ampara, Polonnaruwa, and Anuradhapura districts.

grow an endowment fund for long-term support of rice research. Donations through July 2008 total $12,500. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has given Asia Rice Foundation USA, Inc. nonprot status and all donations are tax-deductible. Donations can be sent to Hugh Murphy at Asia Rice Foundation USA, Inc., 150 Kala Heights Drive, Port Townsend, WA 98368, USA; email [email protected].

ever-changing landscape of rice, can be moving, shocking, celebratory, witty, and thought-provoking. For more information on the UK exhibition, see www.stanscafe.co.uk/ofallthepeople.

Less water = less arsenic

Rice grown aerobically in unooded f i e l d s ( l i k e w h e a t a n d m a i z e) accumulates less arsenic than rice grown in puddled conditions, according to a study by a team of UK and Chinese researchers. In several countries, including Bangladesh and India, rice is a major source of human exposure to arsenic, which has been linked to cancer and other diseases. The problem occurs when farmers ood rice paddies with arsenic-contaminated irrigation water. The scientists compared rice plants grown in ooded soil in greenhouse conditions with rice plants grown under aerobic conditionsa technique developed initially to conserve water. The aerobically grown rices arsenic level was 10 to 15 times lower than that of ooded rice. Their study was published in the 1 August issue of the A merican Chemical Societys Environmental science & technology journal.

Of all the people

Of all the people in all the world is an exhibition that uses grains of rice to bring abstract statistics to life in a startling way. According to the exhibitors, Each grain of rice equals one person and you are invited to compare the one grain that is you to the millions that are not. Over a period of days, a team of performers carefully weighs out quantities of rice to represent a host of human statistics, including populations of towns and cities; global or regional numbers of doctors versus numbers of soldiers; the number of people who are born and who die each day; and the number of people who die in disasters and warfare. The statistics, which are arranged in labeled piles that form an

IRRI memorial fund

The Asia Rice Foundation USA has established an IRRI memorial fund to memorialize with a donation in their names former IRRI staff members who have passed away. The Foundation established the fund in 2005. Half of the income is used for a program to support young scholars involved in rice research. The other half is invested to

Letter
Dear Executive Editor,

TR AINING COURSES AT IRRI

Leadership Course for Asian Women in Agriculture R&D and Extension IRRI Training Center, Los Baos, Philippines, 213 March 2009 Topics include Asian women in the workplace; mainstreaming gender concerns in the workplace; leadership and management; personality development; developing work-related knowledge and skills; and relating to others. For more details, contact Dr. Thelma Paris ([email protected]) or Dr. Noel Magor ([email protected]). Ecological management of rodents, weeds, and rice diseasesbiological and social dimensions IRRI Training Center, Los Baos, Philippines, 1627 March 2009 The themes for the course are ecologically-based pest management with an emphasis on rodents and weeds; applying social science knowledge in decision analysis of pest and disease problems; farmer participatory research. Presenters at the course include Emeritus Professor Charles Krebs, Dr. Grant Singleton, Dr. David Johnson, Dr. Serge Savary, Dr. Flor Palis, and Dr. K.L. Heong. For more details, contact Dr. Grant Singleton ([email protected]).

My respects to you all. I am writing to Rice Today because I will give its articles and those of RIPPLE to some low-price journals and magazines from a private media group. I will distribute interesting articles on rice production development and rice science for media groups and some public libraries free of charge as a general volunteer worker. I am a lowincome person. I do various personal work, part-time nonprot work, and charitable work. I will use those articles for interested persons from various sections. I really hope that many farmers or persons interested in farming will obtain some general knowledge in local language, Myanmar, after I distribute articles about rice science and rice production. I have been aware that natural disasters happened in the Philippines and around the world. Please pray for all people who died from these natural disasters and all the rest who survived around the world, including those in Myanmar. With best wishes, yours respectfully, Mr. Than Htaik (a) Manan

Rice Today October-December 2008