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Major yet quiet breakthroughs in genetically
modified rice have made crops more resilient to rising climate change
challenges like monsoon floods and rising seas
By JOHN MCBETHJAKARTA, NOVEMBER 23, 2018 4:20 PM
(UTC+8)
·
A rice paddy field in rural Karnataka, India. Photo:
iStock/Getty Images
In advances reminiscent of the
“Green Revolution” of four decades ago, agricultural scientists have quietly
made important breakthroughs in the cultivation of Asia’s prime staple food,
developing so-called “scuba rice” that survives long periods of flooding and an
alkaline-resistant “sea rice” farmers are already growing along China’s
northern coast.
With an eye to an uncertain future, the Philippines-based
International Rice Research Institute’s (IRRI) last month sealed a deal with
the Global Crop Diversity Trust to provide permanent funding for the
conservation and sharing of 136,000 varieties of a grain that currently feeds
more than 3.5 billion people a day.
IRRI director general Matthew Morell says the institute’s
invaluable gene bank has become a fundamental part of
global efforts to make rice more resilient, sustainable and equitable at a time
when the impact of climate change far outweighs the positive effects of CO2
fertilization.
In China’s coastal Shandong province, north of Shanghai,
scientists are claiming initial success in an ambitious plan to grow rice on 20
million hectares of tidal flats and saline-alkali soil, especially in the
Yellow River Delta, which they believe could ultimately feed an additional 80
million people.
That’s about 80% of the Shandong populace, or 10% of the 840
million Chinese who depend on rice as their staple – a figure that is unlikely
to grow beyond 2030 when the emerging super power’s population is expected to
peak at about 1.45 billion.
Avoiding the controversy associated with genetically modified
rice, scientists have been trying to grow the grain in brackish water since the
1970s. But it is only now they have come up with varieties that yield a
commercially viable four and a half to nine tons a hectare.
A mill worker in Thailand holds harvested rice
grains. Photo: Reuters / Jorge Silva
China has strived for self-sufficiency in rice, wheat and corn
since the late 1960s, but still falls short of satisfying an appetite for rice
which rose from 125 million tons in 1975 to 261 million tons in 2016, in line
with a population increase of 484 million.
Last year, China was the world’s biggest rice importer with 5.1
million tons, ahead of Nigeria (3.3 million), the Philippines (1.9 million),
Iran and Indonesia (1.7 million). India, by comparison, was the biggest rice
exporter, followed by Thailand, the United States, Pakistan and Vietnam.
Self-sufficiency is a key objective of most other Asian
governments, but with widely varying degrees of success determined not so much
by yields per hectare as water supply and flat land, particularly in countries
with large river deltas like Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar.
In Indonesia, importing rice is always a hot political issue,
largely because its people believe the country is self-sufficient. It did in
fact achieve that goal between 1984-86, but rarely since then with per capita
consumption at 148 kilograms a year – fourth behind Myanmar, Vietnam and
Bangladesh.
IRRI’s high-tech facility in Los Baños, southeast of Manila, has
developed improved rice varieties that withstand flooding and drought, and at
the same time help keep pace with a growing world population and changing
consumer preferences.
By 2050, Asia’s estimated 5.2 billion population will eat about
90% of annual global rice production, which according to most current estimates
will have increased from the current 450 million tons to a staggering 525
million tons.
Men load rice bags to a ship for export at a rice
processing factory in Vietnam’s southern Mekong delta, July 6, 2017. Photo:
Reuters/Kham
IRRI scientists have used its gene bank to achieve genetic
breakthroughs tailored to worldwide climate extremes that already threaten
production in key rice-producing regions, including China, India and Indonesia
– the three largest producers and consumers.
Scuba rice will eventually benefit farmers tending 20 million
hectares of rice-land across Asia hit by regular monsoonal flooding, which last
year killed more than 1,200 people in South Asia alone and raised fears of
long-term food insecurity.
While the staple normally dies within days of being submerged,
“scuba rice” can withstand flooding for up to two weeks or more and is now
being grown by five million farmers in India, Bangladesh, the Philippines and
Indonesia, with Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia as future targets.
Through collaborative research, scientists from the IRRI and the
University of California have spent the past four decades isolating and transferring
the water-tolerant Submarino-1 (sub-1) gene from India’s Orissa variety into
other popular rice types, using a technique known as marker-assisted
backcrossing.
The gene is only activated when it is under water, effectively
placing the plant in a dormant state and allowing it to conserve energy until
the floodwaters slowly recede. Normally, rice stems grow quickly to get the
leaves out of water, which exhausts the plant’s energy reserves.
Rice farmers in Thailand working in their fields.
Photo: AFP
Scuba rice is now grown over 600,000 hectares in India and
Bangladesh, where flooding causes annual paddy losses of four million tons,
enough to feed 30 million people. The funding has largely come from the
foundation created by US billionaire Bill Gates, which focuses on alleviating
the impact of climate change on the world’s poor.
Currently, the so-called Swarna Sub-1 variety is planted across
367,000 ha of eastern India, with the rest grown by about 40% of the farmers in
the northwest of typhoon-battered Bangladesh, now the world’s sixth largest
producer.
In Indonesia, scuba rice covers more than 430,000 ha of such
flood-prone areas as Palembang in South Sumatra and Bandung in West Java, where
the Ciherang sub-1 – one of seven different flood-resistant varieties in Asia —
was first released in 2012.
Under normal conditions, the average yield of most varieties of
scuba rice is about 4.5 to 6.5 tons per hectare. During periods of flooding,
say IRRI scientists, Ciherang sub-1 still yields 3-4 tons, even after two weeks
of complete submergence.
While limited so far, production in the Philippines is
concentrated in low-lying regions like Nueva Ecija in central Luzon, North
Cotabato in Mindanao, and Bohol and Samar in the central and eastern Visayas
where farmers report an average yield of 4.5 tons a hectare.
More than 20 tropical cyclones wreak havoc in the central and
northern Philippines each year. One of the most destructive was Super Typhoon
Haiyan in 2013, which killed 4,460 people, destroyed 2,000 hectares of paddy
fields and caused US$225 million in agricultural damage across Leyte and
eastern Visayas.
A Cambodian farmer cuts rice in a field in Cambodia’s
Kampong Speu province. Photo: AFP/Tang Chhin Sothy
Only last September, Typhoon Mangkhut caused paddy losses of
275,000 tons in northern Luzon, forcing the Philippine government to add
420,000 tons to the one million tons of rice imports ordered earlier in the
year to make up for a perennial shortfall.
Conserved in the IRRI gene bank are improvements to its IR8, the
high-yielding “miracle rice” which brought Asia back from the brink of famine
during the so-called Green Revolution in the 1960s and 70s, when new
innovations transformed agriculture across Southeast Asia.
The collection also includes wild rice species, which have been
used to develop varieties that tolerate heat and drought and resist pests and
diseases. Some have also been modified to resist iron toxicity, a common
problem that affects mostly lowland rice in Africa.
The landmark agreement on conserving IRRI’s gene bank
encompasses what Crop Trust executive director Marie Haga calls “20 years of
work and 50 years of thinking” on how the international community can safeguard
crops used for food and agriculture.
The IRRI is one of 11 gene banks belonging to the Consultative
Group for International Agriculture Research (CGIAR), a global research
partnership working to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security
and improving natural resources and ecosystem service.
SEARCA, IFS GATHER SCIENTISTS, EXPERTS
VS CLIMATE CHANGE
LOS BAÑOS, Laguna: Twenty-seven young scientists and 10 experts serving as
mentors from eight Southeast Asian countries met on Tuesday and Wednesday here
for a two-day workshop to enhance ongoing collaborative research on climate
change adaptation and mitigation in the agriculture sector.
The workshop, titled “IFS-SEARCA Mentoring Workshop on
Collaborative Research in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation,” was
organized by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and
Research in Agriculture (Searca) and the International Foundation for
Science (IFS) based in Sweden. It was held at the Searca headquarters
here.
The 27 participants, 15 of whom were female, composed the 12
collaborative research teams from various government, research, academic and
private institutions in Southeast Asia that received a research grant financed
by the Carolina MacGillavry endowment and Searca.
The
Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture
and the International Foundation for Science based in Sweden recently gathered
27 young scientists and 10 experts from eight Southeast Asian countries to enhance
ongoing collaborative research on climate change adaptation and mitigation in
the agriculture sector. SEARCA PHOTO
“This workshop is part of the
memorandum of agreement for an IFS-Searca Collaborative Research Grants Pilot.
This is the third batch of grantees facilitated by IFS but the first one in
Asia. The first and second pilots were implemented in Africa in 2013 and 2014,”
Searca said in a statement.
In the workshop orientation, Maria Celeste Cadiz, PhD, a
technical advisor of Searca, said the mentoring process is expected to help the
researchers in strengthening their processes, ensuring that their projects are
of high quality and producing useful results. The grants commenced in 2017 and
are expected to be completed by December 2020. Thus, the workshop was timed
while the researchers were in the midst of analyzing their research and writing
their reports.
During the first day of the workshop, participants identified
the following areas of their mentoring needs and concerns: research methods and
data analysis; project-
specific technical concerns; collaborative scientific report writing; journal
article writing and other means of communicating research results; intellectual
ownership/property rights; and future grant opportunities and additional budget.
The teams were able to report their research progress and get
feedback from their mentors in a one-on-one setting for project-specific
questions and in a plenary for cross-cutting concerns.
“The mentors are volunteers identified by Searca and IFS from a
pool of established regional and international scientists from esteemed
research and academic institutions including the Central Luzon State University
in the Philippines, International Rice Research Institute, Katsetsart
University in Thailand, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore,
University of the Philippines Los Baños, and University of the Philippines
Visayas,” Searca said.
Aside from their mentors, the research teams were also able to
get inputs from resource persons from IFS and Searca, while Nighisty Ghezae,
PhD, IFS director, presented the challenges and lessons learned from the first
and second pilot grantees. Bessie Burgos, PhD, technical advisor for Searca
research and development, presented the mid-term report of the current batch of
researchers.
The traditional Lua house belonging to Pim Kayanyaiying, right, at Ban Dong.
Weaving the threads of a unique life
lifestyle November 22, 2018 01:00
By Jintana Panyaarvudh The Nation Mae Hong Son
Three mountainous villages in Northern Mae Hong Son are being studied for possible inclusion in a farmer-based tourism initiative
Three decades ago, the only people who had heard of Ban Dong were its residents and those who lived in the surrounding villages.
Today, the success of its Weaving Women Group has put the Lua village in the mountains of Mae Hong Son on the map, and it’s all thanks to one of its residents, the energetic Pim Kayanyaiying.
The 42-year-old Lua woman has been leading her fellow female villagers in producing hand-woven fabric for more than 25 years and her enthusiasm for learning new skills, developing new products and continuously improving quality has made the textile known all over Thailand as a One Tambon One Product (Otop) of Mae Hong Son.
Sangla Praimeekha, Ban Pa Pae's village headman, poses with the country's first rice bank.
But she still sees room for growth, which is why she is so pleased that her village has been selected as one of target areas in a research project for the Thai farmer-based tourism initiative.
It is said that the Lua people, also known as the Le Wuea and Lawa, lived in Lanna Kingdom before Chiang Mai was founded more than 700 years ago. Although its population is relatively small, with just 50,000 Lua in Thailand, the ethnic group has preserved its unique of way of life.
It is that uniqueness which inspired local researcher Thananchai Mungjit to encourage the highlanders to further explore their values and the meaning of their lives with the aim of establishing a community-based tourism programme.
Thananchai Mungjit
“Our goal [in conducting the research] is to make the Lua communities able to develop their own potential,” says Thananchai, who started the research project last month.
Under the research, the Lua’s way of life will be explored and the data obtained communicated to the world, explains the 44-year-old Mae Hong Son native.
Supported by the Thailand Research Fund [TRF]’s community-based research division, Thananchai selected three remote Lua’s villages – Ban Dong, Ban Laoob and Ban Pa Pae – as the research areas and recruited villagers from each of them to help him in the research project.
Each village has its own unique characteristics that will be highlighted in the research.
Ban Dong is famous for its beautiful terraced rice paddies stretching all along the hillside as well as the top quality local hand-woven fabric while Ban Pa Pae’s first rice bank of Thailand and the community’s sufficiency philosophy has become a model for other villages.
Ban Laoob, meanwhile, produces silver jewellery that’s second to none.
A senior Lua villager dyes colourful thread in Ban Pa Pae.
Located in Mae Hong Son’s Mae La Noi district, Ban Dong’s weaving women’s group turns their textiles into clothing, bags, and home decor items, which are sold at the Mae La Noi Royal Project Development Centre not far from the village.
In the past, the group wove cotton fabric, which is popular across the province.
As the group leader, Pim thought she needed to find something new to differentiate the group’s hand-woven goods from the rest of the market.
So in 1999, when Pim learned that Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn would visit her village, she learnt how to weave wool fabric, the famous fabric produced in Ban Huay Hom neighbourhood, and made a woollen scarf as a gift for the Princess.
Pim then asked the Princess for some sheep so the village could produce its own wool and was granted 20 sheep to raise. Her group has mixed the wool with cotton in its weaves ever since.
A member of Ban Dong Weaving Women Group weaves the local fabric.
“Our hand-woven fabrics are very soft and have a unique structure and extraordinary tribal patterns,” says Pim.
The Lua people’s patterns are inspired by nature and traditional patterns include a reticulated python and peacock’s tail, Pim explains.
Pim, who is also working with the project, hopes the research will help preserve this folk wisdom and bring back the traditional woven cloth for the younger generation and for sale, as well as help in the design of new patterns that represent the uniqueness of her tribe.
A women's group in Ban Pa Pae makes bead necklaces to earn a living.
A 10-minute ride north of Ban Dong is Ban Laoob, a Lua village in the same district and home to fine silverware and woven cloth. This village was chosen for the research project to gather information on the knowledge and traditions of Lua people’s jewellery.
Silver jewellery has been an integral part of life of the ethnic group for more than 130 years so they usually have their own silversmith under their roof, says Narong Pimjaiprapa, a silversmith at Ban Laoob and a team researcher.
The silver jewellery worn by the Lua people on sale at Ban Laoob
The most common jewellery worn are bracelets, earrings and necklaces made of silver, according to Narong, who has earned a living silversmithing since he was 16 and now earns some Bt100,000 a month from his handicrafts.
In the old days, the number of pieces or size of the jewellery symbolised the social and economic status of the hilltribes, Narong explains, adding that while he was told the history of silverware in his village by his forebears, the research will help him find out more about traditions related to the craft.
Further south in Ban Pa Pae of Mae Sariang district, the Lua are very proud of their country’s first rice bank as well as their sufficiency economy, a philosophy developed by His Majesty the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
Traditionally, the villagers here are rice farmers, cultivating one crop per year on terraces.
The beautiful rice terraces are one of the tourist attractions of Ban Dong.
They recall the hard times when drought prevented them from growing enough rice to eat and how King Bhumibol changed their lives completely.
“King Bhumibol visited the village in 1970 with Her Majesty the Queen. The King suggested that we establish a rice bank to guard against food shortages and granted Bt20,000 as startup costs,” recounts Sangla Praimeekha, the village headman.
The villagers spent the money on 20,000kg of rice and shared it among the villagers.
The concept of the rice bank is to lend rice to villagers at 20 per cent interest. In short, anyone who borrows 10kg of rice has to return 12kg of rice another year, explains the village headman.
These days the villagers have enough rice to consume and thus no need to borrow from the bank. However, the bank is still operating and keeps an annual stock of one or two tonnes – just in case.
The villagers farm rice for their own consumption but in years where the yield is high, they will allocate some for sale.
“If we have enough rice to eat, it means we are welloff. We can survive with what we produce because we adhere to the sufficiency economy philosophy,” he says proudly.
Sangla hopes the research will help elevate Ban Pa Pae’s quality of life, while making the village known to the outside world and preserving their traditional rice growing rituals as well as rice species.
None of the residents of the three villagers are strangers to tourism, welcoming visitors every year and providing a homestay service, but they still lack the capacity to manage community-based tourism, Thananchai says.
And tourists visiting the villages do not understand how the paddy field or the hand-loomed fabric are so intricately woven with the Lua way of life, he adds.
“So, we hope the research will pad out an understanding in the tribe’s way of life,” he says.
“And for the villagers, we hope the Thai farmer-based tourism initiative will be a tool to drive the communities to be able to manage tourism by themselves, thus improving their economy and raising their income.”
Once the research results are in, the team is planning to design a route trip connecting the three villages together. In this way, visitors will learn about their unique characters and experience Lua life first hand.
The
Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture
and the International Foundation for Science based in Sweden recently gathered
27 young scientists and 10 experts from eight Southeast Asian countries to enhance
ongoing collaborative research on climate change adaptation and mitigation in
the agriculture sector. SEARCA PHOTO
