7/31/2019 RT Vol. 2, No. 2 Rice in the news

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RICE IN THE NEWS

The leading scientic journals  Nature and  Science both published calls inearly May urging renewed financial

support for IRRI.“Despite rumors to the contrary, the role

of the International Rice Research Institute isas important as ever,” begins an editorial inthe 1 May issue of  Nature(Vol. 423) entitled

 Rice Institute Needs Strong Support . How-ever, it adds, “In the three years from 2001 to2003, IRRI’s annual core funding dropped by 

26%, and similarcuts are expectedin the future.”

“It is es-sential that sup-port for IRRI

 be mobi lize d,”states the Nature editorial. “Re-searchers there,

 where researchthat spurred theGreen Revolu-

tion was carried out, sometimes hear theirsuccess in producing abundant, high-yieldingrice as a justication for cutting their budget,as if to say ‘your job is over.’ But the institute’s

 job is not over — it has just begun.”In the same

 week, the 2 May issue of  Science (Vol. 300) rana broader look at the GreenRevolution andthe role played

 by IRRI and theother 15 inter-national agricul-tural researchcenters (IARCs)in the Consultative Group on International

 Agricultural Research. In summarizing thendings of their book  Assessing the Impact of the Green Revolution, 1960 to 2000, R.E.Evenson and D. Gollin write that “the IARCs

 will have an important role to play i n gen-erating and sustaining future advances inagricultural technology for the developing

 world.”The Science authors add, “The budgets

of many IARCs, not to mention many of their national program counterparts, havedeclined sharply in real terms over the pastdecade.” This has come about, the authorssurmise, in part because development agen-

cies, “perhaps eager to find shortcuts todevelopment, have tended to shift fundingaway from agricultural research and towardother priorities.”

The articles in both journals recountthe successes of publicly funded agriculturalresearch, especially the high-yielding moderncrop varieties at the heart of the Green Revo-

lution. Drs. Evenson and Gollin point out thatthe contributions made by modern varieties(MVs) have increased over time.

“Gains from MVs were larger in the1980s and 1990s than in the preceding twodecades — despite popular perceptions thatthe Green Revolution was effectively over by this time,” they write. “Overall, the produc-tivity data suggest that the Green Revolutionis best understood not as a one-time jumpin production, occurring in the late 1960s,

 but rat her as a lon g-term i ncrease in thetrend growth rate of productivity. This was

 because successive generations of MVs weredeveloped, each contributing gains over pre-

 vious generations. […] The end result … isthat virtually all consumers in the world have

 beneted from lower food prices.”Had there been no Green Revolu-

tion, the authors add, “prices would have

remained constant or risen modestly.” Asa result, “caloric intake per capita in the de-

 veloping world would have been 13.3 to 14.4percent lower, and the proportion of childrenmalnourished would have been from 6.1 to7.9 percent higher. Put in perspective, thissuggests that the Green Revolution succeededin raising the health status of 32 to 42 millionpreschool children. Infant and child mortal-ity would have been considerably higher indeveloping countries as well.”

The  Nature editorialist concedes that“there is now more than enough rice to goaround” following a 2.5-fold improvementin rice yield per hectare since the 1960s. Butthe writer goes on to report that the “easternregions of India, suffering oods and soilalkalinity, struggle to meet their own needsdespite the abundance of rice produced in the

 well-irrigated Punjab region. Telling peopleto redistribute rice won’t help much. Localgrowers need to be able to look after them-selves — for them, research into productivity continues to play an essential role.”

Drs. Evenson and Gollin agree with the Natureeditorial about the need to extend the benets of the Green Revolution to those whohave been left behind because they inhabitfragile agroecological zones. “The challenge

for the coming decades is to nd ways to reachthese farmers with improved technologies,”they write. “For many, future green revolu-tions hold out the best, and perhaps the only,hope for an escape from poverty.

“Yet the prospects for continued greenrevolutions are mixed,” they continue. “Onthe one hand, the research pipeline for the

plant sciences is full. Basic science has gener-ated enormous advances in our understand-ing of plant growth and morphology, stresstolerance, pathogen resistance, and many other elds of science. This understandingshould lead in due course to improvementsin agricultural technologies. But, on the otherhand, IARCs and NARS [national agriculturalresearch systems] are faced with numerouschallenges to their survival” in terms of cur-tailed funding.

 Nature picks up the thread regardinghow the recent sequencing of the rice genome,detailing the genetic heritage that guides theplant’s development, affords new opportuni-ties to rice scientists working to crack suchdaunting challenges as drought tolerance.

“Researchers hope to tap the secretsof the rice genome to meet these challenges

— a good bet,

considering theunexplored bio-diversity in therice germ stocks,”the editorialist

 writes, recapitu-lating a 3-pagenews feature inthe week-earlier,24 April, issueof  Nature (Vol.422). “But there

are signicant obstacles to bringing genomicscience to bear on farmers’ practices. IRRI,

 whose rice lines have been bred into over athird of the new lines produced worldwidesince the 1960s, is well positioned to take upthat challenge.”

In the news feature, entitled A Recipe for Revolution? , David Cyranoski, the journal’s Asian-Pacic correspondent, reports that acentral obstacle to progress in “the tricky task of turning our new knowledge of the rice ge-nome into agricultural and economic gains”is that “genome researchers and breedersare speaking different languages.” He adds,“IRRI … hopes to play a key role in bridgingthe gap between genome researchers and

lant breeders.”

Two top scientific journals publish callsfor more public funding of rice research

Last March saw the publicationof at least two

papers in scientific journals detailing ma- jor pro gre ss in re-search to improve themicronutrient contentof rice through bio-fortication. Bioforti-fication, the focus of 

a challenge programrecently launched by the Consultative Groupon International Agri-cultural Research (seepage 24), combinesmolecular techniquesand conventionalplant breeding to cre-

ate crops with heightened micronutrient content that can helpalleviate nutritional disorders.

The world’s most prevalent nutritional disorder is anemia.This debilitating condition is caused by a lack of iron in the diet— in which, for more than two-thirds o f humanity, rice is the singlelargest source of calories. Although brown rice is generally high iniron, the polishing removes the outer layers o f the grain and causesconsiderable loss of iron and other micronutrients.

The journal Plant Science published in its March 2003 issue(Vol. 164, No. 3, pages 371–378) a paper entitled  Enhanced ironand zinc accumulation in transgenic rice with the ferritin gene .

In it, IRRI researchers and their collaborators in Japan report thatthey have introduced an iron-enhancing ferritin gene to indicarice in such a way that it expresses itself in the rice endosperm.Thus, after polishing, the rice grains contain 3 times more ironthan usual.

“This is the most signicant increase in iron ever achieved in anindica rice variety,” said IRRI plant biotechnologist Swapan Datta,rice crop leader of the Challenge Program on Biofortication, thepaper’s corresponding author and husband of Karabi Datta, one

 Also…

 A study reported in Science (Vol. 299) shows that a surprisingly high

percentage of the improvement in U.S. crop yields over the last 2

decades was due to climate change, not to farm management. The

nding suggests that food production in the U.S. — and perhaps else- where — may be more vulnerable to shifts in climate than was previously 

suspected. The article quotes Ken Cassman, an agronomist formerly at

IRRI and now at the University of Nebraska, observing that “yield trends

in the U.S. have global implications” for food security.• The New York Times published on 20 July an 1,800-word editorial

 by Andrés M artinez entitled  Harvesting Pov erty: The Rigged TradeGame that is a searing indictment of Western agricultural subsidiesand trade barriers.

• The University of Queensland received a grant worth A$1 mil-

lion (US$600,000) to carry out research aimed at developing varieties

of drought-tolerant rice for rainfed areas of Cambodia, Laos and

Thailand, Agence France Presse reported in late April.

of eight other authors. “It could have signicant be billion people in the world who have iron-decien

Several of the same authors, including the produced a paper that appeared in the March 200

 Biotechnology Journa l (Vol. 1, No. 2, pages 81–entitled  Bioengineered ‘golden’ indica rice cultcarotene metabolism in the endosperm with hmannose selection systems, ofcially announcesment of indica varieties rich in provitamin A-riadapted for the tropics.

Swapan Datta reports that IRRI scientists ha

gineered several Asian indica varieties with genes f biosylinegeno(the rietypopu

 var ie Bui Cho

 Vietn— shof beprec

 A, inmal that ing amark

cant ress

developing nutritious rice, including bioengineeresays Dr. Datta, citing negative perceptions on theresistance genes in transgenic plants. Public acceptmore forthcoming, he says, for foods made from tdeveloped with non-antibiotic marker genes.

 A program of safety and bioavailability tests mGolden Rice is still some 4–6 years away from relea

March of progress for enhanced nutrit

• IRRI was featured in a 2-part series entitled  A

and Rice on Radio Australia Asia Pacific ProgramKanaha Sabapathy presented the program, which is ava

 www.abc.net.au/ra/asiapac/programs/s895266.htm.

•  A prole of the IRRI Library and Documentat

peared in the December 2002 issue of  Asia Library New

May 2003), the ofcial journal of the Bangkok-based

Information Virtual Association.• The government of Myanmar announced in Apri

soon stop buying paddy directly from farmers. The liberpart of a shift toward a market-oriented economy, frees

their whole crop to the highest bidder and opens the way

to resume exports of rice.• The project director of the Directorate of Rice Rese

abad, India, in May reportedly called upon rice researcfrom transgenic research on basmati rice. In a press rel

expressed fear that tinkering with the high-value grai n w

national interests.

8 Rice Today October 2003 Rice Today October 2003