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International Rice Research Institute January 2004, Vol. 3 No. 1

INTERNATIONAL
YEAR OF RICE:
National
committees
plan for 2004

FERAL PLAY:
Wide crosses
with wild rice

Art of Rice
Exhibition in California regards food for the spirit
ISSN 1655-5422
i contents
Rice Vol. 3, No. 1
Science Rice covers much of Asia,
for a Better
W rld
Wo NEWS ..........................................................................................................4
Closer collaboration for cereal centers
so improved varieties that need Gates gives $25 million to HarvestPlus
IRRI attracts Korean technology
Pesticide-reduction project wins another award
less pesticide leave a cleaner,
RICE IN THE NEWS............................................................................6
India ink: Press coverage of IRRI in South Asia
greener environment Earliest rice cultivation pushed back 3,000 years
FOOD FOR THE SPIRIT...................................................................7
The Art of Rice: Spirit and Sustenance in Asia
is a thought-provoking and eye-opening
exhibition at the UCLA Fowler Museum
of Cultural History
CONTOURS OF CHANGE ..............................................................8
In this excerpt from the exhibition book
The Art of Rice, a member of a celebrated
Philippine mountain tribe contemplates
the erosion of her native culture and the
ancient rice terraces that have nurtured it
FERAL PLAY........................................................................................ 14
Crop scientists use wide crosses to breed
into cultivated rice varieties the hardiness
of their wild kin
SPECIAL SECTION: RICE AND .............................................. 20
MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
Millennium Development Goals depend
on rice research: CGIAR annual general
meeting focus
Scientific support team award celebrates
Filipinos' role in sustainable development: IRRI scientific publication offers $3,000 in NEW BOOKS....................................................................................... 34
IRRI wins 3 years running prizes for research papers
IRRI adds four new titles to its inventory
Meeting challenges with energy and International Year of Rice 2004 calendar of publications on rice research and
charisma: Outgoing IRRI Board Chair highlights related topics
Angeline Kamba
Conferences, meetings, workshops Rice Trails: Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler
Development in Dhaka: IRRI board and training explores the world of rice that thrives between
attends Poverty Elimination Through Rice
PEOPLE................................................................................................... 32 crop science and cookbooks
Research Assistance communication fair
Partners in progress RICE FACTS.......................................................................................... 36
INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF RICE ........................................ 26
Keeping up with IRRI staff Trading up: A fresh look at the world rice
Year launched in New York: Food and
market for Asians who still equate food
Agriculture Organization Director DONORS CORNER ......................................................................... 33
security with self-sufficiency
General Jacques Diouf presides Cooperating for peace: A priority of the
National committees plan for International German government and the Federal GRAIN OF TRUTH........................................................................... 38
Year of Rice: Progress report from Ministry for Economic Cooperation Let's promote brown rice to combat

Rice is
Asian countries and Development hidden hunger

Life
Cover Don Cole, courtesy UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultrural History International Rice Research Institute
DAPO Box 7777, Metro Manila, Philippines
Editor Peter Fredenburg Web (IRRI): www.irri.org; Web (Library): http://ricelib.irri.cgiar.org;
Deputy editor Adam Barclay Web (Riceweb): www.riceweb.org; Web (Rice Knowledge Bank):
Art director Juan Lazaro IV www.knowledgebank.irri.org
Contributing editors Duncan Macintosh, Gene Hettel, Bill Hardy
Designer and production supervisor George Reyes Rice Today editorial
Photo editor Ariel Javellana telephone (+63-2) 580-5600 or (+63-2) 844-3351 to 53, ext 2401;
Printer Primex Printers, Inc. fax: (+63-2) 580-5699 or (+63-2) 845-0606; email: p.fredenburg@cgiar.org

Rice Today is published by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the world’s should not be construed as expressing IRRI policy or opinion on the legal status of any
leading international rice research and training center. Based in the Philippines and with country, territory, city or area, or its authorities, or the delimitation of its frontiers or
offices in 11 other countries, IRRI is an autonomous, nonprofit institution focused on boundaries.
improving the well-being of present and future generations of rice farmers and consumers, Rice Today welcomes comments and suggestions from readers. Potential contributors
particularly those with low incomes, while preserving natural resources. IRRI is one of are encouraged to query first, rather than submit unsolicited materials. Rice Today
16 centers funded by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research assumes no responsibility for loss or damage to unsolicited submissions, which should
I N T E R N AT I O N A L Y E A R O F R I C E 2 0 0 4 (CGIAR), an association of public and private donor agencies. For more information,
visit the CGIAR Web site (www.cgiar.org).
be accompanied by sufficient return postage.

Responsibility for this publication rests with IRRI. Designations used in this publication Copyright International Rice Research Institute 2004
i contents
Rice Vol. 3, No. 1
Science Rice covers much of Asia,
for a Better
W rld
Wo NEWS ..........................................................................................................4
Closer collaboration for cereal centers
so improved varieties that need Gates gives $25 million to HarvestPlus
IRRI attracts Korean technology
Pesticide-reduction project wins another award
less pesticide leave a cleaner,
RICE IN THE NEWS............................................................................6
India ink: Press coverage of IRRI in South Asia
greener environment Earliest rice cultivation pushed back 3,000 years
FOOD FOR THE SPIRIT...................................................................7
The Art of Rice: Spirit and Sustenance in Asia
is a thought-provoking and eye-opening
exhibition at the UCLA Fowler Museum
of Cultural History
CONTOURS OF CHANGE ..............................................................8
In this excerpt from the exhibition book
The Art of Rice, a member of a celebrated
Philippine mountain tribe contemplates
the erosion of her native culture and the
ancient rice terraces that have nurtured it
FERAL PLAY........................................................................................ 14
Crop scientists use wide crosses to breed
into cultivated rice varieties the hardiness
of their wild kin
SPECIAL SECTION: RICE AND .............................................. 20
MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
Millennium Development Goals depend
on rice research: CGIAR annual general
meeting focus
Scientific support team award celebrates
Filipinos' role in sustainable development: IRRI scientific publication offers $3,000 in NEW BOOKS....................................................................................... 34
IRRI wins 3 years running prizes for research papers
IRRI adds four new titles to its inventory
Meeting challenges with energy and International Year of Rice 2004 calendar of publications on rice research and
charisma: Outgoing IRRI Board Chair highlights related topics
Angeline Kamba
Conferences, meetings, workshops Rice Trails: Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler
Development in Dhaka: IRRI board and training explores the world of rice that thrives between
attends Poverty Elimination Through Rice
PEOPLE................................................................................................... 32 crop science and cookbooks
Research Assistance communication fair
Partners in progress RICE FACTS.......................................................................................... 36
INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF RICE ........................................ 26
Keeping up with IRRI staff Trading up: A fresh look at the world rice
Year launched in New York: Food and
market for Asians who still equate food
Agriculture Organization Director DONORS CORNER ......................................................................... 33
security with self-sufficiency
General Jacques Diouf presides Cooperating for peace: A priority of the
National committees plan for International German government and the Federal GRAIN OF TRUTH........................................................................... 38
Year of Rice: Progress report from Ministry for Economic Cooperation Let's promote brown rice to combat

Rice is
Asian countries and Development hidden hunger

Life
Cover Don Cole, courtesy UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History International Rice Research Institute
DAPO Box 7777, Metro Manila, Philippines
Editor Peter Fredenburg Web (IRRI): www.irri.org; Web (Library): http://ricelib.irri.cgiar.org;
Deputy editor Adam Barclay Web (Riceweb): www.riceweb.org; Web (Rice Knowledge Bank):
Art director Juan Lazaro IV www.knowledgebank.irri.org
Contributing editors Duncan Macintosh, Gene Hettel, Bill Hardy
Designer and production supervisor George Reyes Rice Today editorial
Photo editor Ariel Javellana telephone (+63-2) 580-5600 or (+63-2) 844-3351 to 53, ext 2401;
Printer Primex Printers, Inc. fax: (+63-2) 580-5699 or (+63-2) 845-0606; email: p.fredenburg@cgiar.org

Rice Today is published by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the world’s should not be construed as expressing IRRI policy or opinion on the legal status of any
leading international rice research and training center. Based in the Philippines and with country, territory, city or area, or its authorities, or the delimitation of its frontiers or
offices in 11 other countries, IRRI is an autonomous, nonprofit institution focused on boundaries.
improving the well-being of present and future generations of rice farmers and consumers, Rice Today welcomes comments and suggestions from readers. Potential contributors
particularly those with low incomes, while preserving natural resources. IRRI is one of are encouraged to query first, rather than submit unsolicited materials. Rice Today
16 centers funded by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research assumes no responsibility for loss or damage to unsolicited submissions, which should
I N T E R N AT I O N A L Y E A R O F R I C E 2 0 0 4 (CGIAR), an association of public and private donor agencies. For more information,
visit the CGIAR Web site (www.cgiar.org).
be accompanied by sufficient return postage.

Responsibility for this publication rests with IRRI. Designations used in this publication Copyright International Rice Research Institute 2004
 NEWS
JIN-GON AHN
IRRI attracts technology transfers from South Korea
K wang-Ho Park of the Korea National
Agricultural College in Seoul has devel-
oped new labor-saving direct-seeding tech-
nology for adoption by IRRI stakeholders.
The machinery uses lightweight steel wheels
that allow a conventional tractor to oper-
ate easily in paddies and a tractor-towed
direct seeder that sows pregerminated seed
in rows and covers it with sand or silicate
fertilizer.
As economic development draws labor
away from agriculture, more farmers will
adopt labor-saving practices such as direct
seeding — which, however, still suffers poor
seedling establishment, weed problems,
lodging and inferior grain quality.
“This will improve crop establishment
for direct seeding and help prevent lodging,”
said Shaobing Peng, IRRI crop physiologist.
Briefly
$3 million to boost food security
The Asian Development Bank approved in
November a US$3 million grant for agricul-
tural research projects to boost food security
in poor regions of 14 Asian countries. IRRI
will develop with national partners cropping
systems and technologies to stabilize and
increase rice productivity in unfavorable
monsoon-dependent rice environments in
Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Laos, Phil-
ippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Two other
Consultative Group on International Agri-
cultural Research (CGIAR) centers — the
WorldFish Center and the International
Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry
Areas — will implement projects.
Asian rice supplies assured
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) resolved in August to establish an
East Asia Emergency Rice Reserve System
to ensure adequate supplies of the region’s
staple food. The ministers also welcomed
movement toward developing an ASEAN
4 Rice Today January 2004
“It will also reduce bird damage because
seed is protected under fertilizer or sand.”
IRRI’s ongoing collaboration with
South Korea’s Rural Development Adminis-
tration (RDA) includes developing japonica
rice for temperate regions and high-altitude
tropics. IRRI and RDA co-sponsored in Oc-
tober the 2nd Rice Technology Transfer Sys-
tems in Asia course at the RDA International
Technical Cooperation Center (pictured).
Sixteen participants from 12 Asian coun-
tries studied technology transfer successes
and made field visits to Korean agricultural
development and cooperative projects.
Separately, more than 60 Filipino
alumni of RDA’s training and scientist ex-
change programs met in September in Los
Baños, Laguna, to form the Philippine-RDA
(Korea) Alumni Association.
Briefly
Food Security Information System to help
strengthen regional food security.
Rice Today goes quarterly
Rice Today is doubling its publication fre-
quency for International Year of Rice 2004,
appearing in mid-January and the beginning
of April, July and October. Readers are urged
to complete and return survey postcards in
the October 2003 and January 2004 issues
or by logging on to www.irri.org/ricetoday/
readerssurvey.asp.
New rice CD-ROMs
The IRRI-supported Mountain Agrarian
Systems (SAM) Program has released a
CD-ROM in English, French and Viet-
namese covering the project’s first-phase
(1998-2002) efforts to improve agri-
cultural productivity, natural resource
management and living standards in the
Vietnamese highlands. The material is also
available at www.knowledgebank.irri.org/
sam/intro.html. Another new CD-ROM
Pesticide-reduction project
wins yet another award
A n initiative to reduce insecticide use in
Vietnam has won the International Green
Apple Environment Award. K.L. Heong, IRRI
senior entomologist, collected the award
from the U.K.-based Green Organization
in a November ceremony at the Houses of
ARIEL JAVELLANA
Parliament in London.
Dr. Heong and his collaborators mo-
tivated rice farmers to reduce insecticide
spraying by communicating sound science
through popular media, notably a series of ra-
dio skits that proved extremely popular with
Vietnamese farmers. The process quickly
spread over the Mekong Delta to reach 2
million farmers. Insecticide use plunged by
53% without affecting rice yield.
“Most farmers in the Mekong now
know that early season insecticide spray-
ing is unnecessary,” said Nguyen Huu Huan,
vice director general of Vietnam’s Plant Pro-
tection Department and one of Dr. Heong’s
collaborators. The initiative has since been
carried to central Thailand and the Red
River Delta of northern Vietnam.
While in London, Dr. Heong was inter-
viewed on the BBC News World Edition.
In 2002, Dr. Heong and his team won
the St. Andrews Prize for Environment and
the Golden Rice Award from Vietnam’s Min-
istry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
(This just in — the team’s Three Reductions
Initiative, which builds on its experience
with pesticides, won the 2003 Golden Rice
Award. Details in Rice Today in April.)
Briefly
provides access to 3 decades of literature
on the golden apple snail, its ecology and
management options. To order, contact
Agricultural Librarians Association of the
Philippines President Salome Ledesma
(omecledesma@yahoo.com) or PhilRice
Librarian Elaine Joshi (ejoshi@philrice.
gov.ph).
India moots sharp rise for research
The Indian Agriculture Ministry has pro-
posed raising India’s annual contribution
to international agricultural research from
the present US$750,000 to $10 million. Ag-
riculture Minister Rajnath Singh described
such an increase as appropriate considering
India’s position in the world today and its
stake in agricultural development.
Seed health recommendations
The Philippine Bureau of Plant Industry and
IRRI’s Seed Health Unit held in November
a workshop on “Rice seed health testing
policy for safe and efficient germplasm
$25 million Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant for HarvestPlus
NUTRITIONISTS AND PLANT SCIENTISTS from 14 countries met at IRRI on 6-8 October for the HarvestPlus Rice Crop
meeting to plan strategies for alleviating malnutrition through the development of high-nutrition rice under the lead-
ership of HarvestPlus Program Director Howarth Bouis (1st row, 7th from left) and HarvestPlus Rice Crop Leader Swapan
Datta (on Dr. Bouis’ right). The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced the following week a grant of US$25
million that would cover half of the program’s 4-year budget. The announcement generated widespread press coverage.
Meetings in Vietnam, Indonesia and Philippines map collaboration
S enior representatives of IRRI and its
national partners in Vietnam met in
Hanoi on 18-19 September for the first
Vietnam-IRRI workplan meeting since No-
vember 1998. Participants agreed on three
common research goals: establishing and
maintaining food security both nationally
and at the household level, reducing poverty,
and protecting the environment. The work-
plan, which will remain in force until 2006,
identifies three broad areas of collaboration:
germplasm development through varietal
improvement and germplasm exchange,
integrated pest and nutrient management,
and capacity building through training and
information exchange.
Similar areas, with the addition of
Briefly
movement” at IRRI. Participants reviewed
current knowledge of rice seed-borne patho-
gens and policies on seed health testing and
made recommendations on developing seed
health testing standards, plant quarantine
policies, pest identification, and testing
procedures and methodologies.
Rice in drought-prone areas
Participants at an IRRI-hosted workshop
in November for the Challenge Program on
Water and Food Theme 1 examined ways
to improve water and food productivity in
drought-prone and saline areas. The five
research themes of the program are 1) crop
water-productivity enhancement, 2) mul-
tiple uses of upper catchments, 3) aquatic
ecosystems and fisheries, 4) basin-level wa-
ter management, and 5) national and global
policies for water management.
Frozen harvest
The CGIAR agreed at its annual general
meeting in October to freeze the activities of
socioeconomic and policy issues, mark col-
laboration between IRRI and Indonesia,
whose workplan meeting in Bogor on 29-
30 September was hosted by the Indone-
sian Agency for Agricultural Research and
Development.
In the Philippines, a policy dialogue
on “Maximizing impact of agricultural in-
novation systems in rice production” on
21-22 October attracted to the Philippine
Rice Research Institute representatives
from IRRI, the Department of Agriculture,
NGOs, media, farmer groups and provincial
agricultural offices. The dialogue aimed to
assess and map a response to the technol-
ogy needs of farmers in provinces with low
rice yields.
Briefly
Future Harvest Foundation, a public aware-
ness and fundraising arm of the CGIAR, and
the group’s Public Awareness and Resource
Committee. Members also agreed to sub-
sume the International Service for National
Agricultural Research within the Interna-
tional Food Policy Research Institute, with
effect in May.
Brown rice revival
The Asia Rice Foundation will launch
this year a national campaign to promote
brown rice. Foundation Chair Emil Javier
announced the campaign at a symposium
on the supply and demand of brown rice at
IRRI in November (see page 38).
Systems workshop in India
More than 40 senior policymakers, re-
searchers and agricultural development
practitioners participated last November
in a workshop on “Socioeconomic dynamics
of rice production systems in eastern India”
in New Delhi. The workshop was sponsored
Rice Today January 2004
Cereal centers explore options
for closer ties — but how close?
I RRI and the International Maize and
Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
have agreed to explore alternatives for
closer collaboration. In a joint statement
issued in October, the institutes’ board
chairs said the discussions were founded
on anticipated gains based on the insti-
tutes’ complementary goals and mandates,
research synergies in the social sciences
and biotechnology (especially in light of
colinearity in the genomes of cereal crops),
and possible economies of scale in informa-
tion management, capacity building and
intellectual property management.
IRRI Director General Ronald Cantrell
said that several options would be consid-
ered, ranging from an informal relationship
with more joint planning to a complete
merger. “We had a series of donor meet-
ings,” he added. “We did not hear one nega-
tive comment about the discussions.”
The Rockefeller Foundation agreed to
form an oversight committee chaired by
Rockefeller President Gordon Conway and
a working group of external consultants to
examine the options and write a report for
discussion at a joint meeting of the two
institutes’ boards in mid-2004.
Dr. Cantrell said that the International
Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid
Tropics was considering joining the discus-
sions and that the West Africa Rice Develop-
ment Association (WARDA) – The Africa
Rice Center would also be welcome.
Briefly
by the joint Indian Council of Agricultural
Research-IRRI project that documents and
analyzes patterns of change in rice produc-
tion systems of eastern India over the past
30 years in order to inform technology
design and policy improvement.
Highland strategies explored
A workshop on “Strategies for sustainable
development of agricultural production
systems in the highlands of the Greater
Mekong Subregion (GMS) countries” took
place on 12-16 September in Kunming, the
capital of China’s Yunnan Province, begin-
ning with a 2-day study tour of upland
areas showing how land use has changed
with crop intensification. The workshop
was jointly organized by the Consortium
for Unfavorable Rice Environments, Bu-
reau of Agriculture of Yunnan Province,
Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences
and IRRI, with sponsorship from the Asian
Development Bank and Chinese Ministry
of Agriculture.
5
 NEWS
JIN-GON AHN
IRRI attracts technology transfers from South Korea
K wang-Ho Park of the Korea National
Agricultural College in Seoul has devel-
oped new labor-saving direct-seeding tech-
nology for adoption by IRRI stakeholders.
The machinery uses lightweight steel wheels
that allow a conventional tractor to oper-
ate easily in paddies and a tractor-towed
direct seeder that sows pregerminated seed
in rows and covers it with sand or silicate
fertilizer.
As economic development draws labor
away from agriculture, more farmers will
adopt labor-saving practices such as direct
seeding — which, however, still suffers poor
seedling establishment, weed problems,
lodging and inferior grain quality.
“This will improve crop establishment
for direct seeding and help prevent lodging,”
said Shaobing Peng, IRRI crop physiologist.
Briefly
$3 million to boost food security
The Asian Development Bank approved in
November a US$3 million grant for agricul-
tural research projects to boost food security
in poor regions of 14 Asian countries. IRRI
will develop with national partners cropping
systems and technologies to stabilize and
increase rice productivity in unfavorable
monsoon-dependent rice environments in
Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Laos, Phil-
ippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Two other
Consultative Group on International Agri-
cultural Research (CGIAR) centers — the
WorldFish Center and the International
Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry
Areas — will implement projects.
Asian rice supplies assured
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) resolved in August to establish an
East Asia Emergency Rice Reserve System
to ensure adequate supplies of the region’s
staple food. The ministers also welcomed
movement toward developing an ASEAN
4 Rice Today January 2004
“It will also reduce bird damage because
seed is protected under fertilizer or sand.”
IRRI’s ongoing collaboration with
South Korea’s Rural Development Adminis-
tration (RDA) includes developing japonica
rice for temperate regions and high-altitude
tropics. IRRI and RDA co-sponsored in Oc-
tober the 2nd Rice Technology Transfer Sys-
tems in Asia course at the RDA International
Technical Cooperation Center (pictured).
Sixteen participants from 12 Asian coun-
tries studied technology transfer successes
and made field visits to Korean agricultural
development and cooperative projects.
Separately, more than 60 Filipino
alumni of RDA’s training and scientist ex-
change programs met in September in Los
Baños, Laguna, to form the Philippine-RDA
(Korea) Alumni Association.
Briefly
Food Security Information System to help
strengthen regional food security.
Rice Today goes quarterly
Rice Today is doubling its publication fre-
quency for International Year of Rice 2004,
appearing in mid-January and the beginning
of April, July and October. Readers are urged
to complete and return survey postcards in
the October 2003 and January 2004 issues
or by logging on to www.irri.org/ricetoday/
readerssurvey.asp.
New rice CD-ROMs
The IRRI-supported Mountain Agrarian
Systems (SAM) Program has released a
CD-ROM in English, French and Viet-
namese covering the project’s first-phase
(1998-2002) efforts to improve agri-
cultural productivity, natural resource
management and living standards in the
Vietnamese highlands. The material is also
available at www.knowledgebank.irri.org/
sam/intro.html. Another new CD-ROM
Pesticide-reduction project
wins yet another award
A n initiative to reduce insecticide use in
Vietnam has won the International Green
Apple Environment Award. K.L. Heong, IRRI
senior entomologist, collected the award
from the U.K.-based Green Organization
in a November ceremony at the Houses of
ARIEL JAVELLANA
Parliament in London.
Dr. Heong and his collaborators mo-
tivated rice farmers to reduce insecticide
spraying by communicating sound science
through popular media, notably a series of ra-
dio skits that proved extremely popular with
Vietnamese farmers. The process quickly
spread over the Mekong Delta to reach 2
million farmers. Insecticide use plunged by
53% without affecting rice yield.
“Most farmers in the Mekong now
know that early season insecticide spray-
ing is unnecessary,” said Nguyen Huu Huan,
vice director general of Vietnam’s Plant Pro-
tection Department and one of Dr. Heong’s
collaborators. The initiative has since been
carried to central Thailand and the Red
River Delta of northern Vietnam.
While in London, Dr. Heong was inter-
viewed on the BBC News World Edition.
In 2002, Dr. Heong and his team won
the St. Andrews Prize for Environment and
the Golden Rice Award from Vietnam’s Min-
istry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
(This just in — the team’s Three Reductions
Initiative, which builds on its experience
with pesticides, won the 2003 Golden Rice
Award. Details in Rice Today in April.)
Briefly
provides access to 3 decades of literature
on the golden apple snail, its ecology and
management options. To order, contact
Agricultural Librarians Association of the
Philippines President Salome Ledesma
(omecledesma@yahoo.com) or PhilRice
Librarian Elaine Joshi (ejoshi@philrice.
gov.ph).
India moots sharp rise for research
The Indian Agriculture Ministry has pro-
posed raising India’s annual contribution
to international agricultural research from
the present US$750,000 to $10 million. Ag-
riculture Minister Rajnath Singh described
such an increase as appropriate considering
India’s position in the world today and its
stake in agricultural development.
Seed health recommendations
The Philippine Bureau of Plant Industry and
IRRI’s Seed Health Unit held in November
a workshop on “Rice seed health testing
policy for safe and efficient germplasm
$25 million Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant for HarvestPlus
NUTRITIONISTS AND PLANT SCIENTISTS from 14 countries met at IRRI on 6-8 October for the HarvestPlus Rice Crop
meeting to plan strategies for alleviating malnutrition through the development of high-nutrition rice under the lead-
ership of HarvestPlus Program Director Howarth Bouis (1st row, 7th from left) and HarvestPlus Rice Crop Leader Swapan
Datta (on Dr. Bouis’ right). The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced the following week a grant of US$25
million that would cover half of the program’s 4-year budget. The announcement generated widespread press coverage.
Meetings in Vietnam, Indonesia and Philippines map collaboration
S enior representatives of IRRI and its
national partners in Vietnam met in
Hanoi on 18-19 September for the first
Vietnam-IRRI workplan meeting since No-
vember 1998. Participants agreed on three
common research goals: establishing and
maintaining food security both nationally
and at the household level, reducing poverty,
and protecting the environment. The work-
plan, which will remain in force until 2006,
identifies three broad areas of collaboration:
germplasm development through varietal
improvement and germplasm exchange,
integrated pest and nutrient management,
and capacity building through training and
information exchange.
Similar areas, with the addition of
Briefly
movement” at IRRI. Participants reviewed
current knowledge of rice seed-borne patho-
gens and policies on seed health testing and
made recommendations on developing seed
health testing standards, plant quarantine
policies, pest identification, and testing
procedures and methodologies.
Rice in drought-prone areas
Participants at an IRRI-hosted workshop
in November for the Challenge Program on
Water and Food Theme 1 examined ways
to improve water and food productivity in
drought-prone and saline areas. The five
research themes of the program are 1) crop
water-productivity enhancement, 2) mul-
tiple uses of upper catchments, 3) aquatic
ecosystems and fisheries, 4) basin-level wa-
ter management, and 5) national and global
policies for water management.
Frozen harvest
The CGIAR agreed at its annual general
meeting in October to freeze the activities of
socioeconomic and policy issues, mark col-
laboration between IRRI and Indonesia,
whose workplan meeting in Bogor on 29-
30 September was hosted by the Indone-
sian Agency for Agricultural Research and
Development.
In the Philippines, a policy dialogue
on “Maximizing impact of agricultural in-
novation systems in rice production” on
21-22 October attracted to the Philippine
Rice Research Institute representatives
from IRRI, the Department of Agriculture,
NGOs, media, farmer groups and provincial
agricultural offices. The dialogue aimed to
assess and map a response to the technol-
ogy needs of farmers in provinces with low
rice yields.
Briefly
Future Harvest Foundation, a public aware-
ness and fundraising arm of the CGIAR, and
the group’s Public Awareness and Resource
Committee. Members also agreed to sub-
sume the International Service for National
Agricultural Research within the Interna-
tional Food Policy Research Institute, with
effect in May.
Brown rice revival
The Asia Rice Foundation will launch
this year a national campaign to promote
brown rice. Foundation Chair Emil Javier
announced the campaign at a symposium
on the supply and demand of brown rice at
IRRI in November (see page 38).
Systems workshop in India
More than 40 senior policymakers, re-
searchers and agricultural development
practitioners participated last November
in a workshop on “Socioeconomic dynamics
of rice production systems in eastern India”
in New Delhi. The workshop was sponsored
Rice Today January 2004
Cereal centers explore options
for closer ties — but how close?
I RRI and the International Maize and
Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
have agreed to explore alternatives for
closer collaboration. In a joint statement
issued in October, the institutes’ board
chairs said the discussions were founded
on anticipated gains based on the insti-
tutes’ complementary goals and mandates,
research synergies in the social sciences
and biotechnology (especially in light of
colinearity in the genomes of cereal crops),
and possible economies of scale in informa-
tion management, capacity building and
intellectual property management.
IRRI Director General Ronald Cantrell
said that several options would be consid-
ered, ranging from an informal relationship
with more joint planning to a complete
merger. “We had a series of donor meet-
ings,” he added. “We did not hear one nega-
tive comment about the discussions.”
The Rockefeller Foundation agreed to
form an oversight committee chaired by
Rockefeller President Gordon Conway and
a working group of external consultants to
examine the options and write a report for
discussion at a joint meeting of the two
institutes’ boards in mid-2004.
Dr. Cantrell said that the International
Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid
Tropics was considering joining the discus-
sions and that the West Africa Rice Develop-
ment Association (WARDA) – The Africa
Rice Center would also be welcome.
Briefly
by the joint Indian Council of Agricultural
Research-IRRI project that documents and
analyzes patterns of change in rice produc-
tion systems of eastern India over the past
30 years in order to inform technology
design and policy improvement.
Highland strategies explored
A workshop on “Strategies for sustainable
development of agricultural production
systems in the highlands of the Greater
Mekong Subregion (GMS) countries” took
place on 12-16 September in Kunming, the
capital of China’s Yunnan Province, begin-
ning with a 2-day study tour of upland
areas showing how land use has changed
with crop intensification. The workshop
was jointly organized by the Consortium
for Unfavorable Rice Environments, Bu-
reau of Agriculture of Yunnan Province,
Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences
and IRRI, with sponsorship from the Asian
Development Bank and Chinese Ministry
of Agriculture.
5
 RICE IN THE NEWS
INDIA INK
I
n a speech delivered on 18 September
in the Indian capital of New Delhi, IRRI
Director General Ronald Cantrell com-
mented on how funding constraints were
hindering the development of water-saving
rice varieties. This provided the focus for an
18 September Reuters report picked up the
next day by the Economic Times newspaper.
“There is no doubt the most important
issue in rice over the next 20 to 30 years is the
availability of freshwater,” Dr. Cantrell said,
citing the effect of deforestation and pollution
on freshwater supplies and competition from
households and industry. He added that evi-
dence now exists that farmers can grow high-
yielding varieties of rice much like wheat, with
alternate wetting and drying of the soil.
Dr. Cantrell cautioned, however, that
research into how to grow more rice using
less water was “a slow process” that funding
cuts were making even slower.
The Financial Express newspaper fo-
cused its coverage of Dr. Cantrell’s speech
on his encouraging the Indian rice industry
to diversify its export-bound production of
aromatic rice beyond basmati varieties. A
policy of promoting traditional non-basmati
aromatic varieties would improve farmers’
income, the director general said.
Dr. Cantrell was speaking at the launch in
New Delhi of A Treatise on the Scented Rices
of India, a book co-edited by R.K. Singh, rice
geneticist and IRRI liaison scientist for India,
and Prof. U.S. Singh of G.B. Pant University
of Agriculture and Technology. (The same
month saw the launch in New Delhi of the
book Boro Rice, a collaboration by R.K. Singh,
IRRI Social Sciences Division Head Mahabub
Hossain, and scientists in eastern India and at
the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute.)
Funding slump
The next day, 19 September, found Dr.
Cantrell speaking at the Directorate of Rice
Research in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. A
report in The Hindu Business Line attributed
to Dr. Cantrell the observation that interna-
tional assistance for agricultural research had
slumped by 40 percent. Dr. Cantrell was quot-
ed as saying that funding for research in Asia
in particular was suffering from a “little bit of
success” — the achievement of food security
without solving the problem of poverty — and
from the redirection of funds to Africa.
In Dhaka on 9 September, The New
Nation newspaper ran a story looking ahead
6 Rice Today January 2004
I R R I r e c e n t l y g a r n e r e d a f a i r s p l a s h
o f p r e s s c o v e r a g e i n S o u t h A s i a
IRRI-INDIA
R.K. SINGH launches his book on scented rice flanked
by H.K. Jain (left), former director of the Indian
Agricultural Research Institute, and Ronald Cantrell.
to the communication fair of the IRRI-
managed project Poverty Elimination
Through Rice Research Assistance (PETRRA)
on 10-11 September, coinciding with the IRRI
Board of Trustees meeting in the Bangladeshi
capital. The Daily Star newspaper placed on
that day’s front page a report on the 8 Sep-
tember dialogue on “Sustainable agricultural
growth in Bangladesh: Should we go for bio-
technology for rice improvement?” — which
included IRRI Social Sciences Division Head
Mahabub Hossain and IRRI biotechnologist
Swapan Datta.
The Daily Star then ran a story per
day about rice research. On Wednesday,
10 September, it featured an editorial by
Abdul Bayes, professor of economics at Ja-
hangirnagar University, on saline-affected
rice-growing areas, touching on the Coastal
Water Management Project under PETRRA.
On Thursday it offered front-page coverage of
Agriculture Minister M.K. Anwar’s opening of
the PETRRA communication fair. On Friday
it covered the reception of Dr. Cantrell and
IRRI Board Chair Angeline Kamba by Prime
Minister Begum Khaleda Zia in her office (pic-
ture on page 24). And on Saturday the paper
reported on its front page the succession of
incoming Board Chair Keijiro Otsuka and how
“Bangladesh saved US$229 million a year [in
food imports] through an annual investment
of $18 million in rice research, irrigation de-
velopment and agricultural extension.”
The Daily Star covered a PETRRA-
sponsored dialogue on 28 September on
how Bangladesh could boost its exports of
aromatic rice, which featured IRRI Agricul-
tural Engineering Unit Head Joe Rickman
emphasizing the need for careful milling.
It published on its 1 November front page
a warning from IRRI’s Dr. Hossain that,
despite progress in controlling its birth rate,
Bangladesh must feed 2 million more people
each year (a story picked up by China’s Xinhua
News Agency). On 18 November, an editorial
by Prof. Bayes considered a paper coauthored
by Dr. Hossain that demonstrated the ben-
efits that infrastructure development confers
on farm income.
In Sri Lanka, the 22 November issue
of the Daily News covered the participation
over the previous 2 days of IRRI Deputy
Director General for Research Ren Wang as
chief guest of the 15th Annual Congress of the
Post Graduate Institute of Agriculture of the
University of Peradeniya. At the congress, Dr.
Wang reportedly listed the challenges facing
rice research as 1) achieving food security at
both the national and household level, 2)
improving farmers’ livelihood and eliminat-
ing poverty, 3) balancing the intensification
of production with sustainability goals to
produce more and better food using fewer
inputs while conserving the environment,
and 4) nurturing a new generation of rice
scientists and farmers.
Journal papers
• Plant Disease, the journal of the American
Phytopathological Society, published in Octo-
ber a 14-page paper, Using genetic diversity to
achieve sustainable rice disease management,
co-authored by Hei Leung (IRRI), Youyong
Zhu (Yunnan Agricultural University),
Imelda Revilla-Molina (IRRI), Jin Xiang Fan
(Agriculture Department of Yunnan), Hairu
Chen (Yunnan Agricultural University), Ireneo
Pangga (IRRI), Casiana Vera Cruz (IRRI) and
Twng Wah Mew (IRRI).
• Crop Protection, the journal of the Inter-
national Association for the Plant Protection
Sciences, published a 7-page paper, A par-
ticipatory exercise for modifying rice farm-
ers’ beliefs and practices in stem borer loss
assessment, co-authored by IRRI scientists
M.M. Escalada and K.L. Heong, which details
findings in pesticide reduction research in the
Philippines.
Also…
T
he British Broadcasting Corporation reported
on 21 October that archaeologists had
found 15,000-year-old rice in central Korea. The
discovery of 59 carbonized grains by Lee Yung-
jo and Woo Jong-yoon of Chungbuk National
University pushed back the date for the earliest
known cultivation of rice by 3,000 years. Feast
on the story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/
sci/tech/3207552.stm.
 RICE IN THE NEWS
INDIA INK
I T
n a speech delivered on 18 September
in the Indian capital of New Delhi, IRRI
Director General Ronald Cantrell com-
mented on how funding constraints were
hindering the development of water-saving
rice varieties. This provided the focus for an
18 September Reuters report picked up the
next day by the Economic Times newspaper.
“There is no doubt the most important
issue in rice over the next 20 to 30 years is the
availability of freshwater,” Dr. Cantrell said,
citing the effect of deforestation and pollution
on freshwater supplies and competition from
households and industry. He added that evi-
dence now exists that farmers can grow high-
yielding varieties of rice much like wheat, with
alternate wetting and drying of the soil.
Dr. Cantrell cautioned, however, that
research into how to grow more rice using
less water was “a slow process” that funding
cuts were making even slower.
The Financial Express newspaper fo-
cused its coverage of Dr. Cantrell’s speech
on his encouraging the Indian rice industry
to diversify its export-bound production of
aromatic rice beyond basmati varieties. A
policy of promoting traditional non-basmati
aromatic varieties would improve farmers’
income, the director general said.
Dr. Cantrell was speaking at the launch in
New Delhi of A Treatise on the Scented Rices
of India, a book co-edited by R.K. Singh, rice
geneticist and IRRI liaison scientist for India,
and Prof. U.S. Singh of G.B. Pant University
of Agriculture and Technology. (The same
month saw the launch in New Delhi of the
book Boro Rice, a collaboration by R.K. Singh,
IRRI Social Sciences Division Head Mahabub
Hossain, and scientists in eastern India and at
the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute.)
Funding slump
The next day, 19 September, found Dr.
Cantrell speaking at the Directorate of Rice
Research in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. A
report in The Hindu Business Line attributed
to Dr. Cantrell the observation that interna-
tional assistance for agricultural research had
slumped by 40 percent. Dr. Cantrell was quot-
ed as saying that funding for research in Asia
in particular was suffering from a “little bit of
success” — the achievement of food security
without solving the problem of poverty — and
from the redirection of funds to Africa.
In Dhaka on 9 September, The New
Nation newspaper ran a story looking ahead
6 Rice Today January 2004
I R R I r e c e n t l y g a r n e r e d a f a i r s p l a s h
o f p r e s s c o v e r a g e i n S o u t h A s i a
IRRI-INDIA
R.K. SINGH launches his book on scented rice flanked
by H.K. Jain (left), former director of the Indian
Agricultural Research Institute, and Ronald Cantrell.
to the communication fair of the IRRI-
managed project Poverty Elimination
Through Rice Research Assistance (PETRRA)
on 10-11 September, coinciding with the IRRI
Board of Trustees meeting in the Bangladeshi
capital. The Daily Star newspaper placed on
that day’s front page a report on the 8 Sep-
tember dialogue on “Sustainable agricultural
growth in Bangladesh: Should we go for bio-
technology for rice improvement?” — which
included IRRI Social Sciences Division Head
Mahabub Hossain and IRRI biotechnologist
Swapan Datta.
The Daily Star then ran a story per
day about rice research. On Wednesday,
10 September, it featured an editorial by
Abdul Bayes, professor of economics at Ja-
hangirnagar University, on saline-affected
rice-growing areas, touching on the Coastal
Water Management Project under PETRRA.
On Thursday it offered front-page coverage of
Agriculture Minister M.K. Anwar’s opening of
the PETRRA communication fair. On Friday
it covered the reception of Dr. Cantrell and
IRRI Board Chair Angeline Kamba by Prime
Minister Begum Khaleda Zia in her office (pic-
ture on page 24). And on Saturday the paper
reported on its front page the succession of
incoming Board Chair Keijiro Otsuka and how
“Bangladesh saved US$229 million a year [in
food imports] through an annual investment
of $18 million in rice research, irrigation de-
velopment and agricultural extension.”
The Daily Star covered a PETRRA-
sponsored dialogue on 28 September on
how Bangladesh could boost its exports of
aromatic rice, which featured IRRI Agricul-
tural Engineering Unit Head Joe Rickman
emphasizing the need for careful milling.
It published on its 1 November front page
a warning from IRRI’s Dr. Hossain that,
despite progress in controlling its birth rate,
Bangladesh must feed 2 million more people
each year (a story picked up by China’s Xinhua
News Agency). On 18 November, an editorial
by Prof. Bayes considered a paper coauthored
by Dr. Hossain that demonstrated the ben-
efits that infrastructure development confers
on farm income.
In Sri Lanka, the 22 November issue
of the Daily News covered the participation
over the previous 2 days of IRRI Deputy
Director General for Research Ren Wang as
chief guest of the 15th Annual Congress of the
Post Graduate Institute of Agriculture of the
University of Peradeniya. At the congress, Dr.
Wang reportedly listed the challenges facing
rice research as 1) achieving food security at
both the national and household level, 2)
improving farmers’ livelihood and eliminat-
ing poverty, 3) balancing the intensification
of production with sustainability goals to
produce more and better food using fewer
inputs while conserving the environment,
and 4) nurturing a new generation of rice
scientists and farmers.
Journal papers
• Plant Disease, the journal of the American
Phytopathological Society, published in Octo-
ber a 14-page paper, Using genetic diversity to
achieve sustainable rice disease management,
co-authored by Hei Leung (IRRI), Youyong
Zhu (Yunnan Agricultural University),
Imelda Revilla-Molina (IRRI), Jin Xiang Fan
(Agriculture Department of Yunnan), Hairu
Chen (Yunnan Agricultural University), Ireneo
Pangga (IRRI), Casiana Vera Cruz (IRRI) and
Twng Wah Mew (IRRI).
• Crop Protection, the journal of the Inter-
national Association for the Plant Protection
Sciences, published a 7-page paper, A par-
ticipatory exercise for modifying rice farm-
ers’ beliefs and practices in stem borer loss
assessment, co-authored by IRRI scientists
M.M. Escalada and K.L. Heong, which details
findings in pesticide reduction research in the
Philippines.
Also…
T
he British Broadcasting Corporation reported
on 21 October that archaeologists had
found 15,000-year-old rice in central Korea. The
discovery of 59 carbonized grains by Lee Yung-
jo and Woo Jong-yoon of Chungbuk National
University pushed back the date for the earliest
known cultivation of rice by 3,000 years. Feast
GENE HETTEL
on the story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/
sci/tech/3207552.stm.
THE ART OF RICE
Food for the spirit
he most ambitious exhibition in
the 40-year history of the Fowler
Museum of Cultural History is
its current offering, The Art of
Rice: Spirit and Sustenance in Asia. The
thought-provoking and eye-opening show
is also proving to be a delicious coup for this
museum at the University of California at
Los Angeles.
As a detailed and buoyant Los Ange-
les Times review stated: “The Fowler has
demonstrated that the popular grain [rice]
has provided a lot more than bodily nour-
ishment for the diverse peoples who have
been eating it every day for the last 10,000
years, and that this hardy crop has had a
remarkably civilizing influence on a large
swath of humanity.”
In a similar vein, the magazine Hu-
manities asserted that the Fowler Museum
has shown that, “over the centuries, rice
has been more than a diet staple: it is a
symbol of spirituality.” The periodical is
published bimonthly by a major funder of
the exhibition, the National Endowment for
the Humanities.
Sacred grain
As they enter the hall, visitors witness a key
moment in Javanese mythology, depicted
in traditional Indonesian shadow puppetry,
when the beloved rice goddess Dewi Sri cre-
ates the sacred grain. In nine thematically
arranged galleries, exhibits range from Jap-
anese Zen paintings and rare stone-glazed
sake bottles from the 17th to 19th centuries,
to intricate Indonesian textiles and modern
works created for popular festivals marking
the agricultural cycle.
The final display, named The Future of
Rice, features a photograph, by Ariel Javel-
lana, of IRRI’s seed-storage facility, preserv-
ing for future generations the
genetic heritage of rice.
The guiding force and
indefatigable planner of the
exhibition is Roy Hamilton,
curator of the Fowler’s Asian
and Pacific Collections. A tex-
tiles specialist by training, Dr.
Hamilton can also lay claim
to being a rice expert after
7 years’ researching, select-
ing and acquiring items for
The Art of Rice — a wealth
of ceramics, sculptures, rice
goddess statues, puppets,
woodblock prints, vessels,
plain and extraordinary
COURTESY UCLA FOWLER MUSEUM OF CULTURAL HISTORY
farm tools, woodcarvings,
baskets, and paraphernalia
for performing rice rituals
(see the inside back cover).
“This took a tremen-
dous amount of work and
time, particularly negotiat-
ing loans and signing agree-
ments with other museums
and private parties,” Dr.
Hamilton recalled. “I could
give a 30-minute lecture on
each of the more than 200 THE EXHIBITION BOOK shows on its cover a detail of a 1930s painting
items in the show.” on cloth of rice farming in Bali; Dr. Hamilton (below) in his office.
Guiding a tour of the gal-
leries, he pointed out an early 20th century February to April.
Japanese bridal robe. “The sake imps — or Accompanying the exhibition is a book
shojo — decorating this material provide a that, weighing in at 552 pages and more
sign of good luck for the bride,” he said be- than 2 kg, ranks as the Fowler’s largest-ever
fore turning to granary figures of the Ifugao publishing venture. Also called The Art of
people of the northern Philippines. “These Rice, the book, which is available through
bulul, consisting of a male and female pair, the University of Washington Press, pre-
include an infant, which makes explicit serves the structure of the exhibition with
the connection between rice and human sections corresponding to galleries.
fertility.” “Both the exhibition and book have
cast a very broad net, so I think there is
Mix of materials something to interest almost everybody,”
Dr. Hamilton is most excited about the Dr. Hamilton said. “For the book, I worked
exhibition’s wide-ranging mix of materials with 27 experts from a dozen countries and
from many Asian countries. “I had never encouraged them to write about what they
before dealt with contemporary paintings,” found inspirational.”
he said, “and the ones from Korea and the Among the essays, both scholarly and
Philippines are simply fantastic.” personal, is one regarding the disappearing
From its gala opening on 4 October, rice rituals of the Ifugao. The contributors
the exhibition will continue at the Fowler are Aurora Ammayao and her husband,
until April. It will then move to Napa, Cali- Gene Hettel, head of IRRI’s Communica-
fornia, where it will run from September to tion and Publications Services. An adapted
November, before shifting again in 2005 excerpt from this chapter follows on the
to Honolulu, Hawaii, for a final run from next page.
Rice Today January 2004 7
 THE ART OF RICE

CONTOURS
A member of a

celebrated Philippine

OF CHANGE
mountain tribe

contemplates the

by Aurora Ammayao with Gene Hettel erosion of her native

culture and the ancient

rice terraces that have

nurtured it

Excerpt from . . .
ARIEL JAVELLANA
 THE BANAUE RICE TERRACES, seen from the popular tourist viewpoint (previ-

M
y American husband
certainly is not alone
as a foreigner with a
keen interest in the
Ifugao and our rice
terraces. My people have been the
subject of articles that date back to
the early days of National Geographic
magazine. Dean C. Worcester, then
the secretary of the interior of the
Philippine Islands, featured the Ifugao
ous spread) and more closely (bottom left), received in 1995 recognition as
Throughout the 1990s and into a protected cultural property on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Teodoro
Baguilat (top left), governor of Ifugao Province, emphasizes the need to
the 21st century, there has been
preserve the rice terraces more for the Ifugao people than for tourists. The
continued interest in the direction priests, or mumbaki, Yogyog Dogapna (this page top, at left) and Buyuccan
and pending disappearance of our Udhuk, pictured here in April 2001 after their last performance, are now in
2,000-year-old rice terraces and their 80s and too ill to continue their ritual duties. The author’s father,
related rituals and culture. In 1995 Ammayao Dimmangna (pictured below in 1975), was a mumbaki until he
became a Christian in the mid-1980s.
there was a flurry of activities and
meetings in Manila and Banaue
— some of which I attended — to
formally nominate our rice terraces
for inclusion in the United Nations

in a special September 1912 issue of
the publication devoted entirely to the
headhunters of northern Luzon. In
that issue, he considered the Ifugao to
be barbarians who were nonetheless
excellent hydraulic engineers, as
demonstrated by their marvelous rice
terraces.
Nine decades later, foreigners
are still fascinated with headhunting.
The practice was abandoned long ago
by the Ifugao, but we still have not
escaped that moniker. In the 2000
book The Last Filipino Head Hunters
by David Howard, we are described,
along with our sister tribes the Bontoc
and Kalinga, as having among our
elders the last living headhunters
Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) World
Heritage List as a protected cultural
landscape.
Later that year, when officially
adding the terraces to the list,
UNESCO stated: “For 2,000 years,
the high rice fields of the Ifugao
have followed the contours of the
mountain. The fruit of knowledge
passed on from one generation to
the next, of sacred traditions and a
delicate social balance, they helped
form a landscape of great beauty that
expresses conquered and conserved
harmony between humankind
and the environment.” During its
annual summit in December 2001
AURORA AMMAYAO
Ifugao Terraces Commission, more
resources, greater independence
and an assurance of permanence are
needed.”
Fewer tourists preferred
Teodoro Baguilat, governor of Ifugao
Province, stated in the local press that
he would prefer to have fewer tourists
in the area to facilitate the terraces’
preservation. He also said that once
the terraces are commercialized,
more hotels and establishments
will sprout like mushrooms. During

in the Philippines. I seriously in Helsinki, UNESCO noted its
doubt that anyone now continued deep concern for the rice
alive has ever been terraces by putting them on its List of
a headhunter. World Heritage in Danger. It stated,
in part: “Despite efforts to safeguard
the site by the Banaue Rice Terraces
Task Force and the
a conversation I had with him in
May 2002 in his office in the town
of Lagawe, he clarified that tourism
could be part of a strategy to help
develop the rice terraces and provide
additional income for the people.
“Although part of the country’s
cultural heritage, the terraces are still
primarily agricultural land,”
he said. He is afraid that
the goals of tourism
officials may not always support what
is really needed to preserve our rice
terraces and best serve the people.
“Let’s not preserve the terraces
for the tourists, but for the Ifugao
themselves,” he told me emphatically.
I agree with Mr. Baguilat that the
government should focus on issues
of concern to Ifugao rice farmers,
including infestations of rats and
golden snails as well as enhancing
the irrigation systems for mountain
farms. Perhaps most important of all
is educating our youth to appreciate
that their culture revolves around rice
cultivation — and to consider staying
in the region instead of moving to the
lowlands to seek their fortunes.
Glimmer of understanding
As politicians continue to discuss
what to do, some ordinary Ifugao
citizens, for their part, express a wide
GENE HETTEL
terraces and the traditions and culture — namely Fruto Corre and Kidlat de
tied to them. Guia — have had the same idea. Mr.
Since 1995, when my husband Corre recently won recognition from
was stationed in the Philippines as the Film Academy of the Philippines
a science writer and editor for IRRI, for his ethnographic work Ifugao:
we have made an effort to record Bulubunduking Buhay, a 45-minute
on videotape the various rituals
associated with the rice-growing
calendar. With the help of Ana
Dulnuan-Habbiling, the matriarch
of the tumoná (leading family) in
Tucbuban village for whom my
late father sometimes officiated
as a mumbaki (priest) at various
rice rituals, we have been able to
document many hours of ceremonies,
particularly the post-transplanting
(Kulpe) and the harvest (Ingngilin)
rites. We felt that we could at least
show these tapes to our three
half-Ifugao children and future
grandchildren, giving them a glimmer
of understanding of what their

MERVIN KEENEY
range of feelings and are engaged mother’s culture once was.
in a variety of activities related to Some professional Filipino
the preservation of the Ifugao rice videographers and filmmakers

ARIEL JAVELLANA
Rice Today January 2004 11
 THE BANAUE RICE TERRACES, seen from the popular tourist viewpoint (previ-

M
y American husband
certainly is not alone
as a foreigner with a
keen interest in the
Ifugao and our rice
terraces. My people have been the
subject of articles that date back to
the early days of National Geographic
magazine. Dean C. Worcester, then
the secretary of the interior of the
Philippine Islands, featured the Ifugao
ous spread) and more closely (bottom left), received in 1995 recognition as
Throughout the 1990s and into a protected cultural property on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Teodoro
Baguilat (top left), governor of Ifugao Province, emphasizes the need to
the 21st century, there has been
preserve the rice terraces more for the Ifugao people than for tourists. The
continued interest in the direction priests, or mumbaki, Yogyog Dogapna (this page top, at left) and Buyuccan
and pending disappearance of our Udhuk, pictured here in April 2001 after their last performance, are now in
2,000-year-old rice terraces and their 80s and too ill to continue their ritual duties. The author’s father,
related rituals and culture. In 1995 Ammayao Dimmangna (pictured below in 1975), was a mumbaki until he
became a Christian in the mid-1980s.
there was a flurry of activities and
meetings in Manila and Banaue
— some of which I attended — to
formally nominate our rice terraces
for inclusion in the United Nations

in a special September 1912 issue of
the publication devoted entirely to the
headhunters of northern Luzon. In
that issue, he considered the Ifugao to
be barbarians who were nonetheless
excellent hydraulic engineers, as
demonstrated by their marvelous rice
terraces.
Nine decades later, foreigners
are still fascinated with headhunting.
The practice was abandoned long ago
by the Ifugao, but we still have not
escaped that moniker. In the 2000
book The Last Filipino Head Hunters
by David Howard, we are described,
along with our sister tribes the Bontoc
and Kalinga, as having among our
elders the last living headhunters
Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) World
Heritage List as a protected cultural
landscape.
Later that year, when officially
adding the terraces to the list,
UNESCO stated: “For 2,000 years,
the high rice fields of the Ifugao
have followed the contours of the
mountain. The fruit of knowledge
passed on from one generation to
the next, of sacred traditions and a
delicate social balance, they helped
form a landscape of great beauty that
expresses conquered and conserved
harmony between humankind
and the environment.” During its
annual summit in December 2001
AURORA AMMAYAO
Ifugao Terraces Commission, more
resources, greater independence
and an assurance of permanence are
needed.”
Fewer tourists preferred
Teodoro Baguilat, governor of Ifugao
Province, stated in the local press that
he would prefer to have fewer tourists
in the area to facilitate the terraces’
preservation. He also said that once
the terraces are commercialized,
more hotels and establishments
will sprout like mushrooms. During

in the Philippines. I seriously in Helsinki, UNESCO noted its
doubt that anyone now continued deep concern for the rice
alive has ever been terraces by putting them on its List of
a headhunter. World Heritage in Danger. It stated,
in part: “Despite efforts to safeguard
the site by the Banaue Rice Terraces
Task Force and the
a conversation I had with him in
May 2002 in his office in the town
of Lagawe, he clarified that tourism
could be part of a strategy to help
develop the rice terraces and provide
additional income for the people.
“Although part of the country’s
cultural heritage, the terraces are still
primarily agricultural land,”
he said. He is afraid that
the goals of tourism
officials may not always support what
is really needed to preserve our rice
terraces and best serve the people.
“Let’s not preserve the terraces
for the tourists, but for the Ifugao
themselves,” he told me emphatically.
I agree with Mr. Baguilat that the
government should focus on issues
of concern to Ifugao rice farmers,
including infestations of rats and
golden snails as well as enhancing
the irrigation systems for mountain
farms. Perhaps most important of all
is educating our youth to appreciate
that their culture revolves around rice
cultivation — and to consider staying
in the region instead of moving to the
lowlands to seek their fortunes.
Glimmer of understanding
As politicians continue to discuss
what to do, some ordinary Ifugao
citizens, for their part, express a wide
GENE HETTEL
terraces and the traditions and culture — namely Fruto Corre and Kidlat de
tied to them. Guia — have had the same idea. Mr.
Since 1995, when my husband Corre recently won recognition from
was stationed in the Philippines as the Film Academy of the Philippines
a science writer and editor for IRRI, for his ethnographic work Ifugao:
we have made an effort to record Bulubunduking Buhay, a 45-minute
on videotape the various rituals
associated with the rice-growing
calendar. With the help of Ana
Dulnuan-Habbiling, the matriarch
of the tumoná (leading family) in
Tucbuban village for whom my
late father sometimes officiated
as a mumbaki (priest) at various
rice rituals, we have been able to
document many hours of ceremonies,
particularly the post-transplanting
(Kulpe) and the harvest (Ingngilin)
rites. We felt that we could at least
show these tapes to our three
half-Ifugao children and future
grandchildren, giving them a glimmer
of understanding of what their

MERVIN KEENEY
range of feelings and are engaged mother’s culture once was.
in a variety of activities related to Some professional Filipino
the preservation of the Ifugao rice videographers and filmmakers

ARIEL JAVELLANA
Rice Today January 2004 11

GENE HETTEL (3)
THE KULPE RITUAL being performed by Buyuccan
Udhuk (left) and the Ingngilin, which involves of-
ferings to the gods (center). Ana Dulnuan-Habbiling
(right), pictured here with her granddaughter, strives
to maintain traditional rice rituals despite being a
practicing Catholic. Women transplant rice (below)
on one of the Ifugao Rice Terraces.
video that documents the painful
dilemmas experienced by my people
today. He skillfully establishes the
connections between the terraces and
our traditions — indeed, how they
enrich and nourish each other. The
video’s message is that if the terraces
disappear, so will our tradition
and culture. This tape has been
commercially packaged and is sold in
many video stores and bookstores in
Manila and elsewhere.
Mr. de Guia’s work debuted
internationally on the Discovery
Channel on 26 December 2001, as
part of its Young Filmmaker series. In
it, he shows how we Ifugao ourselves
can document our disappearing
rituals and traditions using small,
handheld video cameras. This is
exactly what my husband, Gene, and I
have been doing since 1995, albeit as
amateurs.
Even though the production
of these programs may have been
motivated in part by profit, I think it
is still a good thing that our rituals
and culture are being documented for
both Ifugao and the world at large.
In viewing these programs, however,
I could not help noticing that many
of the rituals depicted appear to have
been staged expressly for the camera.
This is something that Gene and I
avoided — at least initially — in our
own videotaping. In 1995, this was
still possible when, in July, we taped
several hours of the rice harvest ritual
in Lugu, performed by local mumbaki
Yogyog Dogapna and Buyuccan
Udhuk. The ritual would have been
held regardless of whether or not they
had known that we were coming to
record it.
Only 6 years later, in June
2001, in an attempt to rerecord
the Ingngilin with better camera
equipment and from different angles,
I had to pay three mumbaki from
outside the area to perform the ritual
at Ana Dulnuan-Habbiling’s family
granary. If we had not come, it would
have been the first time that a harvest
ritual was not held in Ana’s granary.
Preserving rituals
I asked Ana, who has been a
practicing Catholic for many years,
why she still persists to preserve
the post-transplanting and harvest
rituals. She replied that it is her
family, after all, that has been
traditionally responsible for taking
the lead in performing the rice
rituals. “I do not want to be the
one remembered for ending this
centuries-old tradition here in
our village,” she said. Most likely
neither Yogyog nor Buyuccan,
who are now in their 80s and both
ill, will be able to continue their
ritual duties. So, emulating Mr.
de Guia’s effort, she requested
that Gene and I provide her with
a copy of the videos of the rituals
AURORA AMMAYAO
that we recorded in her granary over
the years. “We will make do with
watching your tapes on television,”
she said. “It will be better than
nothing.”
Excerpted and adapted with permission
from Chapter 31, Let's Hope the Bile Is
Good!, in The Art of Rice: Spirit and Suste-
nance in Asia, edited by Roy W. Hamilton,
UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History,
which is available from the University of
Washington Press (www.washington.edu/
uwpress).
Feral play O
utbreaks of grassy stunt
virus once ruined rice
harvests and brought
hardship to poor farmers
in South and Southeast
Asia. Today, most commercial rice
varieties developed by IRRI and
its national partners have effective
resistance to the virus — resistance
AILEEN DEL ROSARIO-RONDILLA
borrowed from a wild cousin of
by Adam Barclay
cultivated rice that may no longer
exist in nature.
photography by Ariel Javellana
“In the 1970s, grassy stunt virus
was a major problem,” said Darshan
DARSHAN BRAR, shown standing before IRRI’s greenhouses and Brar, a rice breeder in IRRI’s Plant
(top) pollinating a modern rice variety with a wild relative, is Breeding, Genetics and Biochemistry
pushing the envelope of what is possible in transferring useful Division. “IRRI scientists screened
genes and traits into modern cultivars. Matatag 9 (above), a
commercial cultivar with tungro disease resistance that Dr. Brar
7,000 rice lines for resistance to the
and his colleagues recruited from wild rice, has been released to virus. Fortunately, one of the wild rice
Crop scientists use farmers in the Philippines. lines, a single line of Oryza nivara
from India, was found to be resistant.”
In 1974, IRRI released three
wide crosses to breed varieties with grassy stunt resistance
derived from O. nivara.
“It’s a classic example of a gene
into cultivated rice that wasn’t available in cultivated rice
being taken from wild rice,” added
Dr. Brar, a specialist in such wide
varieties the hardiness crosses. “It has had a major impact on
developing varieties.”
This early success in wide
of their wild kin crossing — so called because of the
large genetic gap separating the two
parental lines — suggests the potential
benefits of tapping wild species for
agronomically desirable traits. It
also illustrates the practical value of
preserving natural habitats and the
biodiversity they harbor.
“That population of O. nivara
from Uttar Pradesh, India, has never
been found again,” reported Gurdev
Khush, former IRRI principal plant
breeder and 1996 World Food Prize
laureate. If these “truly priceless
seeds,” as Dr. Khush described
them, had not been gathered for
conservation in the International Rice
Genebank at IRRI, the trait of strong
resistance to grassy stunt might have
been lost forever. Drive a species to
extinction, and you stand to lose far
more than the plant itself.
Every minute of every day, native
habitat disappears somewhere on
earth. The reasons for this destruction
are many. Homes and infrastructure
are built for an ever-growing
population. New farmland is created.
Some natural areas are cleared out
of necessity and some out of greed,
but every loss of natural habitat risks
impoverishing biodiversity.
No one knows how many species
exist on the planet. It is estimated
that, for every one of the 2 million
or so species that scientists have
described, between 5 and 50 others
have yet to be discovered. Habitat
destruction is driving to extinction
species we never even knew existed.
Included among them may be wild
rice varieties potentially useful to the
wide-crossing work of Dr. Brar.
Novel genes
“Wild species themselves are
agronomically very poor,” he
explained. “For example, they may
be low yielding and have a long
harvest period, poor plant type,
seed-shattering — seeds that fall
off the plant before maturity — and
other traits that breeders and farmers
don’t want. But they may also have
a unique property or novel genes
— some useful factor, like resistance
to diseases or insects, or tolerance of
environmental stresses. We want to
introduce those kinds of traits from
the wild species into cultivated rice, so
the cultivated rice will have stronger
resistance to a particular stress.”

“Because wild germplasm is not
yet thoroughly exploited,” added Dr.
Khush, “there is still great potential
to develop new modern rice varieties.
IRRI’s research in this area is at the
forefront. No other rice wide-crossing
program exceeds it in scope and
productivity.”
Scientists have identified 20 wild
rice species, within each of which are
up to hundreds of different genetic
lines. It is impossible to speculate on
how many more wild rice lines may be
out there, or how many have already
been lost to land clearing. Wild rice
certainly tolerates a wide range of
extreme conditions, including arid
environments, acidic soils and high
altitudes. David Mackill, head of
16
IRRI's Plant Breeding, Genetics and
Biochemistry Division, points out that
this natural variability makes wild
species valuable.
“To look at them, diversity within
each wild species doesn’t appear as
great as in cultivated rice,” said Dr.
Mackill. “But there’s a lot of genetic
variability in wild species, often more
than in cultivated rice. There are
likely to be alleles — different forms
of genes — in wild species that are not
present in rice. Wide crossing is a way
to cast our net more broadly and get
some of these diverse genes into the
rice genome.
“One of the things that Darshan
has done is push the envelope of what
can be transferred by crossing plants
DR. BRAR RESCUES an embryo from a
wide cross and (top right) places it in
a nutrient medium that will allow it
to grow. Nafisah (top left), a masters
scholar from Indonesia who works with
Dr. Brar, examines rice chromosomes
from a wide cross to determine the
relationship between cultivated and
wild rice.
Rice Today January 2004
that are not really even compatible,”
Dr Mackill added. “He’s developed
a number of ways to get genes out
of these very difficult species into
cultivated rice.”
Viable offspring
The more distantly related any two
parent plants are, the more difficult
it is to produce viable offspring.
Crossing two lines of cultivated O.
sativa is relatively easy. Try crossing
O. sativa with, for example, the
African wild species O. brachyantha,
and you have trouble producing
anything at all, let alone a viable
plant that possesses desired traits.
This is where a painstaking technique
known as embryo rescue comes in
(see sidebar opposite). Because the
crosses between two distantly related
species of rice rarely produce viable
seeds, promising embryos need to
be physically removed under the
microscope and grown in the lab.
Even when a wild rice species
is related to O. sativa closely
enough that a direct cross is usually
successful, the progeny always inherit
undesirable traits from the wild
parent. Weeding these out by crossing
and re-crossing with the O. sativa
parent is a long and laborious process.
“This kind of technology
— genetic enhancement through
wide crossing — is an exciting
way to capture useful genes for
increasing resistance to pests,
diseases and environmental stresses,
and improving sustainability and
nutritional quality,” said Dr. Brar.
“During the last 10 or 20 years,
there has been a revolution in
molecular biology. The answers to
many questions for which we weren’t
expecting answers are becoming
clearer and clearer.”
Since IRRI started experimenting
with wide crossing a few decades
ago, the institute has notched up
some impressive successes in the
area of pest resistance. In addition
to grassy stunt resistance, scientists
have transferred to cultivated
varieties resistance to the debilitating
bacterial blight (BB), blast and tungro
diseases. A wide-crossed tungro-
resistant variety (Matatag 9) has
been released in the Philippines as a
stop-gap variety for tungro hot spots.
Wide crossing has also produced
rice resistant to brown planthopper,
the insect pest that carries a double
whammy by transmitting grassy stunt
virus. Four such varieties — derived
from a wide cross with O. officinalis,
an Asian wild rice — have been
released in Vietnam.
The transfer of BB resistance
from the wild species O. longistam-
inata, found in Africa, tells the tale of
how the combination of wide crossing
and new techniques in molecular
biology is having impact. A specific
gene found in O. longistaminata —
known as Xa21 — offers rice a broad
spectrum of resistance. There are
many races of BB, and any resistant
plant is unlikely to be immune to
all of them. Xa21 does an excellent
job, though — in the Philippines, for
example, there are nine prevalent BB
races, and Xa21 offers resistance to all
of them.
Traditionally, finding out whether
a new line of rice was resistant to a
disease entailed physically inoculating
each individual plant. Today, a
technique known as molecular
marker-assisted selection has made
this process — and the subsequent
development of resistant commercial
varieties — far quicker and easier.
Researchers take a sample of a rice
plant, extract its DNA and examine
it in the lab to determine whether
a particular plant has inherited
Managing a mismatch
C
rossing cultivated rice, Oryza sativa,
with a distant wild relative can be
difficult. Any of a number of barriers
can combine to prevent a successful cross.
There is no guarantee of producing any sort
of progeny at all — and even if a hybrid
results, it will almost certainly be sterile.
Into the breach step Darshan Brar and his
colleagues in IRRI’s Plant Breeding, Genetics
and Biochemistry Division, who are expert at
a technique called embryo rescue.
Embryo rescue requires the physical
excision under a microscope of promising
embryos from their impoverished seeds.
These embryos then grow in tissue culture
in the lab until the resulting plants are
DR. BRAR SELECTS a promising embryo and places it
mature enough to be transferred to soil and
in the nutrient medium.
eventually crossed with their cultivated rice
parent. The process of determining whether they exhibit their wild parent’s useful trait can
then begin. Breeders cross the rescued hybrid with its O. sativa parent; the progeny from
that cross is crossed again with O. sativa and so on — using embryo rescue each time.
This backcrossing is repeated until the resulting plant is almost identical to the original O.
sativa parent and yields a fertile seed. If things go according to plan, the only significant
difference in the new plant is that it possesses the desired wild rice trait.
Although embryo rescue is not a technically difficult procedure, the painstaking nature
of the process derives from the sheer number of times it needs to be performed. As many as
98% of the seeds created from wide crosses don’t even carry an embryo, and any resulting
embryo won’t necessarily possess the sought-after wild rice trait. Therefore, breeders need
a very large sample of wide-crossed seeds — up to several thousand, hundreds of which
may be embryo rescue candidates — to have a chance of finding at least one with the
desired trait.
a specific trait. This method has “The vast majority of commercial
facilitated the transfer of Xa21 and hybrid rice has a CMS source derived
its associated BB resistance to many from wild rice,” said Dr. Brar.
commercial rice varieties in the rice- “The discovery of CMS, by Chinese
growing world. scientists, is another major example
of how wild rice has contributed to a
Coming of age widening of the gene pool.”
Wild rice and wide crossing are also Just as crops that are resistant
integral to the production of most of to pests greatly reduce the need
the hybrid rice grown commercially for pesticides, crops that compete
in the world today. Hybrid rice — rice successfully with weeds could lead
with two different varieties as parents to major cuts in herbicide use. In
— came of age in China and is now collaboration with the West Africa
becoming increasingly popular in Rice Development Association
subtropical Asia. Although farmers (WARDA) – The Africa Rice Center,
must buy new seed each season IRRI is currently working with
because seed saved from a hybrid an African rice, O. glaberrima, to
crop performs badly, hybrid rice can achieve that result.
yield up to 20 percent more grain Oryza glaberrima is cultivated in
than traditional inbred varieties. a small area of West Africa and so is
To produce hybrid rice, you need not, strictly speaking, a wild rice, but
distinct male and female parents. To it is a relatively distant relation of O.
achieve this, one of the parents must sativa. More to the point, it has a trait
possess a trait known as cytoplasmic that Dr. Brar and his team are keen to
male sterility (CMS), which renders breed into some of IRRI’s commercial
that parent purely female. varieties — weed-competitive ability.
Rice Today January 2004 17

“Because wild germplasm is not
yet thoroughly exploited,” added Dr.
Khush, “there is still great potential
to develop new modern rice varieties.
IRRI’s research in this area is at the
forefront. No other rice wide-crossing
program exceeds it in scope and
productivity.”
Scientists have identified 20 wild
rice species, within each of which are
up to hundreds of different genetic
lines. It is impossible to speculate on
how many more wild rice lines may be
out there, or how many have already
been lost to land clearing. Wild rice
certainly tolerates a wide range of
extreme conditions, including arid
environments, acidic soils and high
altitudes. David Mackill, head of
16
IRRI's Plant Breeding, Genetics and
Biochemistry Division, points out that
this natural variability makes wild
species valuable.
“To look at them, diversity within
each wild species doesn’t appear as
great as in cultivated rice,” said Dr.
Mackill. “But there’s a lot of genetic
variability in wild species, often more
than in cultivated rice. There are
likely to be alleles — different forms
of genes — in wild species that are not
present in rice. Wide crossing is a way
to cast our net more broadly and get
some of these diverse genes into the
rice genome.
“One of the things that Darshan
has done is push the envelope of what
can be transferred by crossing plants
DR. BRAR RESCUES an embryo from a
wide cross and (top right) places it in
a nutrient medium that will allow it
to grow. Nafisah (top left), a masters
scholar from Indonesia who works with
Dr. Brar, examines rice chromosomes
from a wide cross to determine the
relationship between cultivated and
wild rice.
Rice Today January 2004
that are not really even compatible,”
Dr Mackill added. “He’s developed
a number of ways to get genes out
of these very difficult species into
cultivated rice.”
Viable offspring
The more distantly related any two
parent plants are, the more difficult
it is to produce viable offspring.
Crossing two lines of cultivated O.
sativa is relatively easy. Try crossing
O. sativa with, for example, the
African wild species O. brachyantha,
and you have trouble producing
anything at all, let alone a viable
plant that possesses desired traits.
This is where a painstaking technique
known as embryo rescue comes in
(see sidebar opposite). Because the
crosses between two distantly related
species of rice rarely produce viable
seeds, promising embryos need to
be physically removed under the
microscope and grown in the lab.
Even when a wild rice species
is related to O. sativa closely
enough that a direct cross is usually
successful, the progeny always inherit
undesirable traits from the wild
parent. Weeding these out by crossing
and re-crossing with the O. sativa
parent is a long and laborious process.
“This kind of technology
— genetic enhancement through
wide crossing — is an exciting
way to capture useful genes for
increasing resistance to pests,
diseases and environmental stresses,
and improving sustainability and
nutritional quality,” said Dr. Brar.
“During the last 10 or 20 years,
there has been a revolution in
molecular biology. The answers to
many questions for which we weren’t
expecting answers are becoming
clearer and clearer.”
Since IRRI started experimenting
with wide crossing a few decades
ago, the institute has notched up
some impressive successes in the
area of pest resistance. In addition
to grassy stunt resistance, scientists
have transferred to cultivated
varieties resistance to the debilitating
bacterial blight (BB), blast and tungro
diseases. A wide-crossed tungro-
resistant variety (Matatag 9) has
been released in the Philippines as a
stop-gap variety for tungro hot spots.
Wide crossing has also produced
rice resistant to brown planthopper,
the insect pest that carries a double
whammy by transmitting grassy stunt
virus. Four such varieties — derived
from a wide cross with O. officinalis,
an Asian wild rice — have been
released in Vietnam.
The transfer of BB resistance
from the wild species O. longistam-
inata, found in Africa, tells the tale of
how the combination of wide crossing
and new techniques in molecular
biology is having impact. A specific
gene found in O. longistaminata —
known as Xa21 — offers rice a broad
spectrum of resistance. There are
many races of BB, and any resistant
plant is unlikely to be immune to
all of them. Xa21 does an excellent
job, though — in the Philippines, for
example, there are nine prevalent BB
races, and Xa21 offers resistance to all
of them.
Traditionally, finding out whether
a new line of rice was resistant to a
disease entailed physically inoculating
each individual plant. Today, a
technique known as molecular
marker-assisted selection has made
this process — and the subsequent
development of resistant commercial
varieties — far quicker and easier.
Researchers take a sample of a rice
plant, extract its DNA and examine
it in the lab to determine whether
a particular plant has inherited
Managing a mismatch
C
rossing cultivated rice, Oryza sativa,
with a distant wild relative can be
difficult. Any of a number of barriers
can combine to prevent a successful cross.
There is no guarantee of producing any sort
of progeny at all — and even if a hybrid
results, it will almost certainly be sterile.
Into the breach step Darshan Brar and his
colleagues in IRRI’s Plant Breeding, Genetics
and Biochemistry Division, who are expert at
a technique called embryo rescue.
Embryo rescue requires the physical
excision under a microscope of promising
embryos from their impoverished seeds.
These embryos then grow in tissue culture
in the lab until the resulting plants are
DR. BRAR SELECTS a promising embryo and places it
mature enough to be transferred to soil and
in the nutrient medium.
eventually crossed with their cultivated rice
parent. The process of determining whether they exhibit their wild parent’s useful trait can
then begin. Breeders cross the rescued hybrid with its O. sativa parent; the progeny from
that cross is crossed again with O. sativa and so on — using embryo rescue each time.
This backcrossing is repeated until the resulting plant is almost identical to the original O.
sativa parent and yields a fertile seed. If things go according to plan, the only significant
difference in the new plant is that it possesses the desired wild rice trait.
Although embryo rescue is not a technically difficult procedure, the painstaking nature
of the process derives from the sheer number of times it needs to be performed. As many as
98% of the seeds created from wide crosses don’t even carry an embryo, and any resulting
embryo won’t necessarily possess the sought-after wild rice trait. Therefore, breeders need
a very large sample of wide-crossed seeds — up to several thousand, hundreds of which
may be embryo rescue candidates — to have a chance of finding at least one with the
desired trait.
a specific trait. This method has “The vast majority of commercial
facilitated the transfer of Xa21 and hybrid rice has a CMS source derived
its associated BB resistance to many from wild rice,” said Dr. Brar.
commercial rice varieties in the rice- “The discovery of CMS, by Chinese
growing world. scientists, is another major example
of how wild rice has contributed to a
Coming of age widening of the gene pool.”
Wild rice and wide crossing are also Just as crops that are resistant
integral to the production of most of to pests greatly reduce the need
the hybrid rice grown commercially for pesticides, crops that compete
in the world today. Hybrid rice — rice successfully with weeds could lead
with two different varieties as parents to major cuts in herbicide use. In
— came of age in China and is now collaboration with the West Africa
becoming increasingly popular in Rice Development Association
subtropical Asia. Although farmers (WARDA) – The Africa Rice Center,
must buy new seed each season IRRI is currently working with
because seed saved from a hybrid an African rice, O. glaberrima, to
crop performs badly, hybrid rice can achieve that result.
yield up to 20 percent more grain Oryza glaberrima is cultivated in
than traditional inbred varieties. a small area of West Africa and so is
To produce hybrid rice, you need not, strictly speaking, a wild rice, but
distinct male and female parents. To it is a relatively distant relation of O.
achieve this, one of the parents must sativa. More to the point, it has a trait
possess a trait known as cytoplasmic that Dr. Brar and his team are keen to
male sterility (CMS), which renders breed into some of IRRI’s commercial
that parent purely female. varieties — weed-competitive ability.
Rice Today January 2004 17

DR. BRAR EXAMINES an example of
the wild species Oryza rufipogon,
which donated tolerance to acid
sulfate soils to IRRI’s popular, high-
yielding variety IR64, as Philippine
staff researcher Joie Ramos and
Kofi Bimpong, a masters scholar
from Ghana, look on. The resulting
cultivar, AS 996 (bottom), is popular
among farmers in Vietnam.
A weed-competitive plant
suppresses the growth of weeds
that would otherwise stifle its own
growth. Researchers still have much
to learn about the mechanics of
weed competitiveness — how plants
compete underground for water and
nutrients and how some even exude
substances that inhibit the growth of
their rivals — but rapid early growth
that shuts out competitors and denies
them the energy of the sun appears
to be a major factor. Such weed
competitiveness, said Dr. Brar, is
especially useful where farmers adopt
direct seeding of rice fields in place of
18
the more labor-intensive practice of
transplanting seedlings.
“When you grow rice by direct
seeding, the weeds may overpower it
and strongly affect rice productivity
and yield,” he explained. “If we can
transfer weed-competitive ability into
cultivated rice, then the rice grown
by direct seeding will automatically
suppress weeds and reduce the need
for herbicides.”
IRRI’s success in breeding rice
varieties with resistance to pests and
diseases offers encouragement as the
institute now refocuses on breeding
for tolerance of so-called abiotic
Rice Today January 2004
stresses such as drought and saline or
acid soils.
“There’s good potential to find
alleles in wild species that will
contribute to agronomic traits related
to abiotic stress,” said Dr. Mackill.
“Darshan has shifted his emphasis
toward fishing for desirable genes that
may not be obvious at first sight.”
Prize winner
Dr. Brar and his colleagues have
already crossed IRRI’s popular
IR64 cultivar with O. rufipogon, a
wild species that naturally grows
in acid sulfate soils in Vietnam. In
collaboration with Vietnam's Cuu
Long Delta Rice Research Institute
(CLRRI), one of the resulting lines
(AS996) has been released in Vietnam
for commercial cultivation. It now
occupies 100,000 ha of moderately
acidic soil and recently netted CLRRI
a prize from the Vietnam Union of
Science and Technology Associations
for its popularity with farmers in less-
favorable rice-growing areas.
Dr. Mackill continued: “Drought
is the No. 1 abiotic stress in rainfed
rice. If you could calculate the damage
in terms of yield loss, it would be very
high, probably at the top of the list.
quite new. We call it aerobic rice.”
Everyone these days is trying to
do more with less, and rice farmers
are no exception. If wide-crossed
rice varieties help farmers produce
more grain using fewer resources
— particularly water, pesticides and
herbicides — farm communities will
prosper, poor rice consumers will
have more cash for necessities other
than rice, and pressure to plow under
the last remaining areas of relatively
undisturbed nature will decrease.
On top of the better-known
benefits of conserving natural
habitats, successful deployment of
rice cultivars improved through wide
crossing helps maximize the chances
of discovering, preserving and
benefiting from as-yet-undiscovered
species of wild rice. Given the right
traits in wild rice, scientists like
Dr. Brar and his team will develop
commercial varieties that are both
friendlier to the environment and
better able to nourish the poor.
“I come from a rural farming
family and I really know, practically,
how essential it is to improve crop
plants,” said Dr. Brar. “More broadly,
if you want to help society — to
contribute to humanity as a scientist
by improving access to better-quality
food — then I think this is a good
approach.”
Mr. Barclay is an Australian Youth
Ambassador assigned for a year to
IRRI, where his duties include serving
as deputy editor of Rice Today.
But the thinking is
that there will be
water shortages
even in irrigated
areas. And we are
looking at trying to
breed rice that is
adapted to using less
water. Perhaps the
soil would not be
flooded as it usually
is with rice. This
idea of developing
BUI CHI BUU / CLRRI
high-yielding rice
for nonflooded
conditions is really
Rice Today January 2004 19
 Special section: RICE AND MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

3
by the IRRI-led project Poverty Promote
Elimination Through Rice Research gender
Assistance (PETRRA) in cooperation equality
with the Bangladesh Rice Research and empower
Institute. The PETRRA fair attracted women: Women
some 2,000 visitors each day to see traditionally shoulder
for themselves the progress made many of the chores of
by the 45 research-for-development rice farming and today
subprojects under the innovative are assuming additional
PETRRA umbrella. responsibilities as their
All PETRRA subprojects use rice menfolk seek off-farm
research and extension as the entry employment. Research
point to spur rural development and that makes rice farming more efficient frees women to
improve the lives of rice growers grow cash crops and independently pursue remunerative
and consumers alike. This reflects activities to support personal fulfillment and cover school
the conviction that research to help fees for all of their children, boys and girls alike.
farmers grow rice more efficiently,

4&5
profitably and sustainably is the
essential first step toward achieving
six of the eight United Nations
Millennium Development Goals. Reduce child mortality
and improve maternal

1
Eradicate extreme health: Because Asia’s
poverty and hunger: Most poorest depend on rice for
of the world’s poorest and most of their calories and
least food- protein, many suffer dietary
secure people deficiencies of iron, zinc and
live in rice- CAROLYN DEDOLPH
vitamin A. Globally, “hidden
producing hunger” for these essential
Asia. Many micronutrients afflicts more than half of humanity,
are rice especially women and young children. Making rice more
farmers and nutritious will help protect those most vulnerable to
even more are hidden hunger.

Millennium Development Goals

slum-dwellers

7
or landless farm laborers who buy Ensure environmental sustainability:
their daily rice. Rice is so central to Rice occupies more farmland in Asia than any
their lives that any solution to global other food crop — 60% or more in the poorest

DEPEND ON RICE RESEARCH

CHRIS STOWERS (4) poverty and hunger must include countries. Rice research that improves the productivity of
research that helps farmers earn a decent profit while existing fields boosts harvests in line with growth in the
growing rice that is affordable to consumers. number of mouths to feed, without encroaching on forests
and other natural areas. Research that optimizes farmers’

2
Achieve universal primary education: pesticide and fertilizer use improves their income as it
Asia’s poorest spend 20-40% of their income on protects the environment.

A
rice. Helping farmers grow rice more efficiently
chieving most of the Millennium Development Institute. Much of the discussion at the CGIAR meeting means cheaper
Goals spelled out by the United Nations focused on defining the achievements and challenges of rice for consumers,
3 years ago hinges on policymakers recognizing the CGIAR research centers in terms of the Millennium higher income for
the essential role rice plays in the lives and Development Goals. producers, and more
livelihoods of most of the world’s poor. A renewed “People are discovering that the goals have practical money for both
emphasis on this reality has marked recent gatherings in value,” said Mike Jackson, IRRI’s director of program to invest in their
international agricultural research. planning and coordination. “They provide research children’s education.
IRRI’s parent organization, the Consultative Group on organizations with a touchstone for assessing the relative More efficient rice
International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), welcomed merits of different projects in a tight funding environment. farming techniques
almost 1,000 policymakers, scientists and development And they provide policymakers and funding agencies with also lighten the labor
specialists to the group’s annual general meeting on 28-31 a framework to guide their investments.” burden on farm
October in Nairobi, Kenya — the only country to host the Some 7 weeks before the CGIAR confab, an IRRI households, leaving
headquarters of two CGIAR research centers, the World Board of Trustees meeting in Dhaka, Bangladesh, children more time
Agroforestry Center and International Livestock Research coincided with a 2-day communication fair sponsored ARIEL JAVELLANA
for their studies.
20 Rice Today January 2004 Rice Today January 2004 21
 Scientific Support Team award celebrates
CGIAR Filipinos’ role in sustainable development
Annual General Meeting 2003

F
ilipino researchers have won distributing them to farmers, plant establishing and upgrading genetic
for the 3rd consecutive year breeders and other scientists. resources facilities and conducting

AILEEN DEL ROSARIO-RONDILLA

the world’s most prestigious
award for a scientific support
team in publicly funded agricultural
research. The award was announced
on 27 October at the annual general
meeting in Nairobi of the Consultative
Group on International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR), which each year
presents the CGIAR Excellence in
Science Awards.
The winning team comprises
33 Filipino scientists working in the
Genetic Resources Center (GRC)
at IRRI. The researchers operate
the GRC, which manages the
International Rice Genebank, and
play a central role in the center’s
achievement of significant scientific
advances in the conservation and
use of rice genetic resources. The
team is responsible for storing,
testing, multiplying, characterizing
and documenting seed samples from
the world’s most comprehensive
collection of rice genetic resources
— 110,000 samples of traditional
and modern varieties of cultivated
rice, as well as wild species — and
MEETING CHALLENGES WITH ENERGY AND CHARISMA
“We aim to protect traditional
varieties of rice so that they can
be used to help poor rice farmers
throughout the world,” said Ruaraidh
Sackville Hamilton, head of the
GRC. “We are open to any nation,
including those who do not deposit
their traditional varieties with us,
provided they agree not to infringe
the sovereign rights of nations over
their biodiversity.”
Reputation for excellence
The Filipino team has been instru-
mental in building the genebank’s
reputation for excellence. The recent
external review of CGIAR genebank
operations cited it as the “best in the
CGIAR system” and “a model for
others to emulate.”
The team developed an
online Manual of Operations that
documents all daily management
operations and is used by many
national and regional genebanks as
a guide and distance-learning tool.
The GRC team has also supported
national and regional genebanks by
genebank and data-management
training in Bangladesh, Cambodia,
India, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and
the Philippines.
Genebank Manager Flora de
Guzman, who traveled to Nairobi THE AWARD-WINNING Genetic Resources Center support team: (left to right, 1st row) Amita Juliano, Nelia
to receive the award, said that IRRI Resurreccion, Emerlinda Hernandez, Teresita Santos, Adelaida Alcantara, Ma. Elizabeth Naredo, Flora de Guz-
man, Ma. Socorro Almazan, Digna Salisi and Renato Reaño; (2nd row) Alicia Lapis, Imelda Boncajes, Jacqueline
has been actively conserving rice
Manuel, Isabelita de Mesa, Yolanda Malatag, Veronica Mangubat, Minerva Eloria, Lydia Angeles, Minerva Ma-
biodiversity for 4 decades, since the catangay, Maridee Pontipedra, Wilma Lumaybay, Gregorio Mercado and Florencio Villegas; (3rd row) Bernardo
establishment of the genebank in 1962. Mercado, Arnold Gonzales, Noel Banzuela, Bernardino Almazan, Felix Llanes, Vicente Arcillas, Melencio Lalap,
“Over the past decade, there Romulo Quilantang and Remegio Aguilar (not pictured, Mario Rodriguez). The other winners (inset) in Nairobi.
have been significant changes and
improvements to genebank facilities Biodiversity for Sustainable Pest impaired growth in young children implement the program in seven
and operations, particularly in seed Management, which netted last from Benin and Togo was published in African countries. VITAA is a research
production and conservation, data year’s support team award. The 2002 in the British Medical Journal, and public health initiative to combat
management and research,” said Ms. research saw high-value but disease- Vol. 325. The co-authors are three re- widespread vitamin A deficiency by
de Guzman. susceptible traditional rice varieties searchers at the International Institute promoting new varieties of orange-
Since 1986, the genebank has interplanted with disease-resistant for Tropical Agriculture: K. Cardwell, fleshed sweet potatoes.
distributed 250,000 seed samples, hybrids to produce, with reduced A. Hounsa and S. Egal, along with Y.Y. The winner of the award for
facilitating the free movement of spraying of fungicide, a healthy Gong, P.C. Turner and C.P. Wild of Outstanding Journalism was
germplasm among 96 countries. This crop worth nearly US$281 more per the University of Leeds, and A.J. Hall Indian journalist Pallava Bagla for
includes repatriating 32,000 rice hectare than a crop of hybrids alone. of the London School of Hygiene and his article Drought exposes cracks in
samples to 34 countries of origin. Access to the traditional varieties Tropical Medicine. The study docu- India’s monsoon model, published
Restoring traditional rice varieties stored by the GRC was pivotal to the mented a striking association between in 2002 in the prestigious journal
can increase farmers’ income — and project’s success. malnutrition in children and their Science, and for a body of scientific
so advance Millennium Development Genetic resources also support exposure to aflatoxin, thus revealing articles published in mainstream
Goals — as dramatically demonstrated IRRI’s hybrid rice breeding team, the need to address aflatoxin contami- media and reputed journals.
in the IRRI-led project Exploiting which won the award in 2001. nation in stored food grains. M.J. Williams of the WorldFish
The prize-sharing paper African Center received the Outstanding
Other winners
pastoralism: Genetic imprints of Communications award for the
Other winners this year included origins and migrations was published Fish for All Campaign, which raised
Abdul Mujeeb Kazi of the Inter- in 2002 in Science, Vol. 296, by Oliver awareness of the ways fish contribute

“T
wo of the most remarkable years of my life,” said national Maize and Wheat Improve- Hanotte, Joel W. Ochieng, Yasmin to the food needs of 1 billion of the
Angeline Kamba, summing up her term as chair of the ment Center, who was named Out- Verjee and J. Edward O. Rege of the world’s poor, provide livelihoods to
IRRI Board of Trustees. “IRRI faces some enormous standing Scientist for generating International Livestock Research 120 million low-income wage earners,
challenges, not least of which is the urgent need to and making available new genetic Institute, and Daniel G. Bradley and and are challenged by a degrading
continue to develop reliable new sources of funding. This diversity for wheat improvement. Emmeline W. Hill of the Smurfit natural resource base.
was one of the central issues during my time as chair, and Honored as Promising Young Institute at Trinity College in Ireland.
I’m pleased to say that some promising new strategies are Scientist was Jonathan Crouch, the The first continent-wide study of the
being developed by the institute.” global theme leader for biotechnology genetic diversity of cattle in Africa,
Mrs. Kamba, IRRI’s first female or African board at the International Center for the paper reports 7 years’ research in
chair, took over from Sjarifudin Baharsjah of Indonesia Research in the Semi-Arid Tropics, characterizing, conserving and using
in January 2002. She was scheduled to hand over to the who led the effort to develop the indigenous animal genetic resources
YUSUF WACHIRA / IMAGE HUNTERS (3)

incoming chair, Keijiro Otsuka, a respected Japanese ANGELINE KAMBA with

upstream biotechnology and genetic for the benefit of Africa’s poor.
agricultural economist, at the end of December. the Earth Institute’s enhancement program at the center The Outstanding Partnership
“As someone with no direct connection to rice or Jeffrey Sachs (left) and and was instrumental in establishing award recognized the Vitamin A for
rice research, I had some concerns about what I could CGIAR Chairman Ian its Applied Genomics Laboratory. Africa (VITAA) Program, coordinated
contribute to an institute like IRRI,” she recalled. “Now, Johnson at the CGIAR Two papers received the Out- by the International Potato Center, for
annual general meeting CGIAR CHAIRMAN Ian Johnson arrives at the meeting
at the end of my term, I’m pleased at what I and my fellow in Nairobi.
standing Scientific Article award. its work with 44 local and international flanked by Kenyan Vice President Moody Awori (left)
continued on page 24 Dietary aflatoxin exposure and development organizations to and Agriculture Minister Kipruto Arap Kirwa.

22 Rice Today January 2004 Rice Today January 2004 23

 Scientific Support Team award celebrates
CGIAR Filipinos’ role in sustainable development
Annual General Meeting 2003

F
ilipino researchers have won distributing them to farmers, plant establishing and upgrading genetic
for the 3rd consecutive year breeders and other scientists. resources facilities and conducting

AILEEN DEL ROSARIO-RONDILLA

the world’s most prestigious
award for a scientific support
team in publicly funded agricultural
research. The award was announced
on 27 October at the annual general
meeting in Nairobi of the Consultative
Group on International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR), which each year
presents the CGIAR Excellence in
Science Awards.
The winning team comprises
33 Filipino scientists working in the
Genetic Resources Center (GRC)
at IRRI. The researchers operate
the GRC, which manages the
International Rice Genebank, and
play a central role in the center’s
achievement of significant scientific
advances in the conservation and
use of rice genetic resources. The
team is responsible for storing,
testing, multiplying, characterizing
and documenting seed samples from
the world’s most comprehensive
collection of rice genetic resources
— 110,000 samples of traditional
and modern varieties of cultivated
rice, as well as wild species — and
MEETING CHALLENGES WITH ENERGY AND CHARISMA
“We aim to protect traditional
varieties of rice so that they can
be used to help poor rice farmers
throughout the world,” said Ruaraidh
Sackville Hamilton, head of the
GRC. “We are open to any nation,
including those who do not deposit
their traditional varieties with us,
provided they agree not to infringe
the sovereign rights of nations over
their biodiversity.”
Reputation for excellence
The Filipino team has been instru-
mental in building the genebank’s
reputation for excellence. The recent
external review of CGIAR genebank
operations cited it as the “best in the
CGIAR system” and “a model for
others to emulate.”
The team developed an
online Manual of Operations that
documents all daily management
operations and is used by many
national and regional genebanks as
a guide and distance-learning tool.
The GRC team has also supported
national and regional genebanks by
genebank and data-management
training in Bangladesh, Cambodia,
India, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and
the Philippines.
Genebank Manager Flora de
Guzman, who traveled to Nairobi THE AWARD-WINNING Genetic Resources Center support team: (left to right, 1st row) Amita Juliano, Nelia
to receive the award, said that IRRI Resurreccion, Emerlinda Hernandez, Teresita Santos, Adelaida Alcantara, Ma. Elizabeth Naredo, Flora de Guz-
man, Ma. Socorro Almazan, Digna Salisi and Renato Reaño; (2nd row) Alicia Lapis, Imelda Boncajes, Jacqueline
has been actively conserving rice
Manuel, Isabelita de Mesa, Yolanda Malatag, Veronica Mangubat, Minerva Eloria, Lydia Angeles, Minerva Ma-
biodiversity for 4 decades, since the catangay, Maridee Pontipedra, Wilma Lumaybay, Gregorio Mercado and Florencio Villegas; (3rd row) Bernardo
establishment of the genebank in 1962. Mercado, Arnold Gonzales, Noel Banzuela, Bernardino Almazan, Felix Llanes, Vicente Arcillas, Melencio Lalap,
“Over the past decade, there Romulo Quilantang and Remegio Aguilar (not pictured, Mario Rodriguez). The other winners (inset) in Nairobi.
have been significant changes and
improvements to genebank facilities Biodiversity for Sustainable Pest impaired growth in young children implement the program in seven
and operations, particularly in seed Management, which netted last from Benin and Togo was published in African countries. VITAA is a research
production and conservation, data year’s support team award. The 2002 in the British Medical Journal, and public health initiative to combat
management and research,” said Ms. research saw high-value but disease- Vol. 325. The co-authors are three re- widespread vitamin A deficiency by
de Guzman. susceptible traditional rice varieties searchers at the International Institute promoting new varieties of orange-
Since 1986, the genebank has interplanted with disease-resistant for Tropical Agriculture: K. Cardwell, fleshed sweet potatoes.
distributed 250,000 seed samples, hybrids to produce, with reduced A. Hounsa and S. Egal, along with Y.Y. The winner of the award for
facilitating the free movement of spraying of fungicide, a healthy Gong, P.C. Turner and C.P. Wild of Outstanding Journalism was
germplasm among 96 countries. This crop worth nearly US$281 more per the University of Leeds, and A.J. Hall Indian journalist Pallava Bagla for
includes repatriating 32,000 rice hectare than a crop of hybrids alone. of the London School of Hygiene and his article Drought exposes cracks in
samples to 34 countries of origin. Access to the traditional varieties Tropical Medicine. The study docu- India’s monsoon model, published
Restoring traditional rice varieties stored by the GRC was pivotal to the mented a striking association between in 2002 in the prestigious journal
can increase farmers’ income — and project’s success. malnutrition in children and their Science, and for a body of scientific
so advance Millennium Development Genetic resources also support exposure to aflatoxin, thus revealing articles published in mainstream
Goals — as dramatically demonstrated IRRI’s hybrid rice breeding team, the need to address aflatoxin contami- media and reputed journals.
in the IRRI-led project Exploiting which won the award in 2001. nation in stored food grains. M.J. Williams of the WorldFish
The prize-sharing paper African Center received the Outstanding
Other winners
pastoralism: Genetic imprints of Communications award for the
Other winners this year included origins and migrations was published Fish for All Campaign, which raised
Abdul Mujeeb Kazi of the Inter- in 2002 in Science, Vol. 296, by Oliver awareness of the ways fish contribute

“T
wo of the most remarkable years of my life,” said national Maize and Wheat Improve- Hanotte, Joel W. Ochieng, Yasmin to the food needs of 1 billion of the
Angeline Kamba, summing up her term as chair of the ment Center, who was named Out- Verjee and J. Edward O. Rege of the world’s poor, provide livelihoods to
IRRI Board of Trustees. “IRRI faces some enormous standing Scientist for generating International Livestock Research 120 million low-income wage earners,
challenges, not least of which is the urgent need to and making available new genetic Institute, and Daniel G. Bradley and and are challenged by a degrading
continue to develop reliable new sources of funding. This diversity for wheat improvement. Emmeline W. Hill of the Smurfit natural resource base.
was one of the central issues during my time as chair, and Honored as Promising Young Institute at Trinity College in Ireland.
I’m pleased to say that some promising new strategies are Scientist was Jonathan Crouch, the The first continent-wide study of the
being developed by the institute.” global theme leader for biotechnology genetic diversity of cattle in Africa,
Mrs. Kamba, IRRI’s first female or African board at the International Center for the paper reports 7 years’ research in
chair, took over from Sjarifudin Baharsjah of Indonesia Research in the Semi-Arid Tropics, characterizing, conserving and using
in January 2002. She was scheduled to hand over to the who led the effort to develop the indigenous animal genetic resources
YUSUF WACHIRA / IMAGE HUNTERS (3)

incoming chair, Keijiro Otsuka, a respected Japanese ANGELINE KAMBA with

upstream biotechnology and genetic for the benefit of Africa’s poor.
agricultural economist, at the end of December. the Earth Institute’s enhancement program at the center The Outstanding Partnership
“As someone with no direct connection to rice or Jeffrey Sachs (left) and and was instrumental in establishing award recognized the Vitamin A for
rice research, I had some concerns about what I could CGIAR Chairman Ian its Applied Genomics Laboratory. Africa (VITAA) Program, coordinated
contribute to an institute like IRRI,” she recalled. “Now, Johnson at the CGIAR Two papers received the Out- by the International Potato Center, for
annual general meeting CGIAR CHAIRMAN Ian Johnson arrives at the meeting
at the end of my term, I’m pleased at what I and my fellow in Nairobi.
standing Scientific Article award. its work with 44 local and international flanked by Kenyan Vice President Moody Awori (left)
continued on page 24 Dietary aflatoxin exposure and development organizations to and Agriculture Minister Kipruto Arap Kirwa.

22 Rice Today January 2004 Rice Today January 2004 23

continued from page 22

board members have been able to achieve — with the

energetic support of IRRI management, for which I would
like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude.”
IRRI Director General Ronald P. Cantrell praised Mrs.
Kamba’s enormous contribution to the institute during
what has been a challenging period.
“Clearly the most painful and difficult experience
during her term,” he said, “was the retrenchment in 2002,
which saw the institute lose 170 staff because of a funding
downturn. Thanks to her leadership and steady hand, the
institute was able to emerge stronger and with a brighter
future.”
The energetic and charismatic Mrs. Kamba brought to
the job a wealth of experience. A librarian by training, she
has served the government of Zimbabwe as public service
commissioner, director of the National Archives (which

Sustainable development in Dhaka

led to a term as vice president of the International Council
on Archives), and Zimbabwean representative (and later

DRIK (4)
chair) of the Inter-governmental Council for the General
Information Program of the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In the

T
international arena, she has served on the boards of CAB
International and the journal Information Development. he IRRI-led project Poverty Elimination engaged in PETRRA subprojects to touch base with each interest rates for investments in agriculture.
Mrs. Kamba played a key role at many IRRI-related Through Rice Research Assistance (PETRRA) other and see how their subprojects fit into the larger Speaking for IRRI were Board Chair Angeline Kamba
events. “One of the highlights for me was the International and Bangladesh Rice Research Institute jointly picture of sustainable rural development and achieving and Director General Ronald P. Cantrell, who stressed
Rice Congress in Beijing in September 2002, which Chinese organized a 2-day communication fair at the Millennium Development Goals. Donors and prospective that ensuring a balanced diet for Asian rice consumers and
President Jiang Zemin graciously opened,” she recalled. “This Sheraton Hotel in Dhaka on 10-11 September. The donors, meanwhile, had a chance to learn more about profitability for Asian farmers meant growing more rice
confirmed the enormous respect IRRI is privileged to enjoy event coincided with a meeting of the IRRI Board of this innovative and competitive approach to organizing on less land so that farmers could plant other crops. Other
among the rice-producing nations of the world.” Trustees in Dhaka, its first-ever meeting in Bangladesh. and delivering development aid. Finally, the fair was an speakers included Agriculture Secretary Ayub Quadri
Mrs. Kamba’s swan song representing IRRI was at The objective of the fair was to publicize the opportunity to emphasize the central role agriculture plays and Fazle Hasan Abed, the distinguished founder of the
the annual general meeting of the Consultative Group on portfolio of ongoing research, experiences and results as an engine of poverty reduction. Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee and IRRI
International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in Nairobi at of the PETRRA project (www.petrra-irri.org), a The fair featured 47 stalls presenting research-in- board member.
the end of October. “It pleased me greatly that the CGIAR research-for-development project funded by the United progress on technology development, dissemination A seminar on PETRRA and the Poor took place
was finally able to hold one of its annual get-togethers in Kingdom’s Department for International Development. pathways and methods, and policy. Displayers included in the afternoon of the launch day, followed the next
Africa,” she said, “and that I could participate as an IRRI Since its launch in 1999, PETRRA has explicitly aimed PETRRA and its subprojects, the Bangladesh Rice day by a seminar on Challenges for Communication of
representative.” to contribute to Millennium Development Goals by Research Institute, Bangladesh Agricultural Development Agricultural Research Results. Panelists emphasized
Mrs. Kamba said that her one regret was leaving IRRI halving extreme poverty by 2015. Corporation, Bangladesh Rice Foundation, and Forum crop diversification and marketing, as well as the
before the events marking International Year of Rice 2004. The fair displayed progress to date on the 45 for Information Dissemination on Agriculture. Some dissemination to farmers of information on new research
“As a cultural activist, I hope that there will be an subprojects operating under the PETRRA umbrella. 80 farmers, male and female, were available alongside and technologies. They also noted that missing links
extensive cultural component It also provided an opportunity for stakeholders researchers in the stalls to discuss their experiences. between scientists and breeders on the one hand, and
in the events marking the The estimated 4,000 people attending the fair the farming community on the other, could be bridged
PRIME MINISTER Begum Khaleda Zia received IRRI Board Chair Angeline Kamba during the September
International Year of Rice,” included students, donor representatives, civil servants, by strengthening agricultural extension and information
board meeting in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Viewing an experimental field (top left, from left) are Adil-
she added, referring to her son Serrãp, board member; Keijiro Otsuka, incoming board chair; Mahabub Hossain, Social members of nongovernmental organizations, development services and by using print and electronic media.
work with the Southern Sciences Division head; and Mike Jackson, director for program planning and develop- workers, agricultural scientists,
African Association for ment. Cutting the ribbon at the PETRRA Communication Fair (above right) is Minister journalists, farmers and housewives.
Research into Culture and for Agriculture M.K. Anwar, flanked by IRRI Director General Ronald P. Cantrell Presiding at the opening ceremony,
(left) and State Minister for Agriculture Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.
Development, Harare which attracted some 500 guests to the
Dr. Cantrell and Minister Anwar (bottom far right) huddle.
(Zimbabwe) International Farmers (bottom right) learn about seed health. Sheraton ballroom, was M.K. Anwar,
Festival of the Arts, minister for agriculture of the People’s
and UN/UNESCO Republic of Bangladesh. In his speech,
World Commission Mr. Anwar emphasized the need to
on Culture and develop an agricultural marketing
Development. “I system and pursue crop biotechnology.
understand very well Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, member
that rice is more than of Parliament and state minister for
just food in Asia — it’s agriculture, also spoke, reporting that
a way of life.” the government had lowered bank
24 Rice Today January 2004 25
NATIONAL COMMITTEES PLAN FOR INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF RICE
I
n the run-up to International Year of Rice 2004,
several Asian countries established national
committees to coordinate observance of the year
and made progress in formulating plans. This
report describes the state of play when Rice Today went
to press at the beginning of December and should not
be taken as definitive or complete. Partly to stay up-to-
date on national plans for the year, IRRI will set up an
International Year of Rice homepage to complement
the homepage operated by the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) of the United Nations at
www.rice2004.org. Keep an eye out at www.irri.org
for a new link.
The Philippine National
Steering Committee for
International Year of Rice agreed
at its meeting on 14 November
that the flagship joint activity for the year would be
a World Food Day program on 16 October, to which
it plans to invite as guest of honor FAO Director General
Jacques Diouf.
The committee resolved to introduce a rice component
into Environment Week in June, in coordination with the
Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and
that all participating agencies should feature rice in their
anniversary programs during the year. Additionally, the
Department of Tourism will take the lead in organizing
Rock for Rice concerts at various state universities and
tourist sites such as the historic Intramuros district
of Manila. The department will seek private-sector
sponsors for the concerts.
The committee has adopted the mascot
of the Philippine Rice Research Institute
(PhilRice), Palayman, as its official mascot
for International Year of Rice.
IRRI, which has its headquarters at
Los Baños, in the Philippine province of
Laguna, will host three separate visiting
Palayman days for farmers, diplomats and Philippine DAVY SURYADI (left) of the Association of South-
east Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretariat looks
on as Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China joins

Year launched in New York

ASEAN heads of state in signing an International
Year of Rice poster at the ASEAN+3 Summit in
Bali on 7 October. At a meeting on 18-22 August
in Kuala Lumpur of ASEAN, Chinese, South
Korean and Japanese ministers of agriculture and

acques Diouf, director general of
the Food and Agriculture Orga-
nization (FAO) of the United Na-
PRC GOVERNMENT
animals, which also help supplement forestry, IRRI Director General for Partnerships
William Padolina led IRRI’s first active participa-
rural diets and incomes. Rice is there-
tion in an ASEAN event.
fore on the frontline in the fight against

tions, formally launched International
Year of Rice 2004 at a special event
on 31 October at the United Nations
headquarters in New York.
International Year of Rice 2004 is
an international drive led by the FAO
and supported by governments and
international organizations, including
IRRI, to focus attention on the vital
role of rice in ensuring global food
security and alleviating poverty and
malnutrition. Forty-four UN member
countries endorsed a proposal initiat-
ed by the Philippines to dedicate 2004
to this important crop.
“Almost a billion households in
Asia, Africa and the Americas depend
on rice systems as their main source of
employment and livelihood,” Dr. Diouf
told UN delegates during the launch.
“About four-fifths of the world’s rice
is produced by small-scale farmers
and is consumed locally. Rice systems
support a wide variety of plants and
26
world hunger and poverty.”
Dr. Diouf added that rice produc-
tion and consumption is a pivot of
many cultures around the world, shap-
ing religious observances, festivals,
customs, cuisine and celebrations.
“It’s time for the global commu-
nity to work together to increase rice
production in a sustainable way that
will benefit farmers, women, children
and, especially, the poor,” Dr. Diouf
stressed. “The Year of Rice will act as
a catalyst for country-driven pro-
grams throughout the world. We aim
to engage the entire community of
stakeholders, from rural farmers to the
scientific institutions that mapped the
rice genome, in the mission to increase
rice production in a manner that
promotes sustainability and equity.
Many member countries have already
formed national committees for the In-
ternational Year of Rice, and they will
serve as the dynamic link between our
Rice Today January 2004
KATHERINE LOPEZ
government officials. The institute is refurbishing the with rice, rice arts and crafts, folk dances on planting rice,
Riceworld Museum and Learning Center to accommodate and storytelling.
IRRI SPOKESPERSON Duncan Macintosh (right) with the expected surge in the number of visitors in 2004 The National Steering Committee Secretariat met on
Mahmoud Solh, director of the Plant Production and and is planning special exhibitions on rice and the 18 November to prepare for the media briefing set for 12
Protection Division of FAO’s Agriculture Department, environment (February-April), biotechnology (May- December. Agriculture Secretary Luis P. Lorenzo serves
at the launch.
August), and Graindell and rice culture (September- as chairman of the National Committee, and Tourism
December). Secretary Richard J. Gordon and Asia Rice Foundation
international vision and the practical The National Commission on Culture and the Arts' Board Chair Emil Q. Javier are co-chairs. PhilRice,
realities in local people’s lives.” Subcommittee on Science and Technology Museums headed by Executive Director Leo Sebastian, serves as
Launch activities included an of the Philippines will use rice as a major theme for the National Committee Secretariat, with assistance from
International Year of Rice exhibition activities next year. Four of the 14 member museums have IRRI.
on 27-31 October at UN headquarters submitted plans. UST Museum, at the University of Santo
in New York that featured rice plants Tomas, Manila, will present in June and July an exhibit DR. LEOCADIO S. SEBASTIAN MS. KAREN ELOISSA T. BARROGA
Executive Director Program Leader
from Cornell University, literature on of paintings on rice themes and a science exhibit from the PhilRice, Maligaya PhilRice Technology Promotion,
rice (including Rice Today, Interna- UST Research Center for Natural Sciences. The Philippine Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija Maligaya
Tel: (+63-44) 456-0354 Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija
tional Rice Research Notes, Rice Al- Science Heritage Center will print posters featuring lsebastian@philrice.gov.ph Tel: (+63-44) 456-0651 to 52, ext 500
manac and Graindell), a slide show, outstanding scientists in rice research and technology, kbarroga@philrice.gov.ph
DR. ROGELIO C. CUYNO
photographs and posters, and dem- tapping PhilRice to publish a book, 100 Years of Rice Asia Rice Foundation MS. JENNIFER C. JARA-RABARA
onstrations of the FAO and IRRI Web Research, expected out in May. Malabon Zoo in Manila SEARCA, UPLB Campus Executive Assistant
College, Laguna Office of the Executive Director
sites, including the Rice Knowledge will plant rice gardens around the grounds to create a Tel: (+63-49) 536-2285 PhilRice, Maligaya
Bank and the educational children’s “see and feel” exhibit of the rice plant. Museo Pambata ng rogervcuyno@yahoo.com Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija
Tel: (+63-44) 456-0112
site developed by IRRI to accompany Maynila will display a special exhibit on rice varieties and jenjara@philrice.gov.ph
its Graindell storybook. sponsor monthly activities for children, including cooking
Rice Today January 2004 27
 IRRI scientific publication
offers $3,000 in prizes
Indonesia got the process off to a GERMPLASM SPECIALIST Appa Rao (center) explains Lao-IRRI Project work to Nations; and a representative from the Swiss Agency for for research papers
Australian Ambassador Jonathan Thwaites (left) and Claes Kjellström, first
good start in October. Minister of Development and Cooperation office in Hanoi.
Agriculture Bungaran Saragih marked
secretary at the Swedish Embassy responsible for development
cooperation, during an International Year of Rice VIP visit. Host of the 2004 summit of the Association of F or 28 years, International Rice Research Notes (IRRN)
has actively disseminated rice research results to the
larger scientific community. To mark International Year
World Food Day by announcing, at an Southeast Asian Nations, Laos has named its National
of Rice — and to recognize how rice researchers from
event in Ambarawa, Central Java, the Committee for International Year of Rice, as follows. national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES) advance rice-related
island nation’s participation in International Year of Rice H.E. DR. SIENE SAPHANGTHONG (CHAIR) DR. LEENA M. KIRJAVAINEN knowledge and technology — IRRN has announced its Best Article Award.
and, at the same time, the release of a new rice cultivar. Minister of Agriculture FAO Representative The IRRN editorial board and invited reviewers will evaluate submissions
c/o Dr. Phouang Parisak P.O. Box 1640 on the basis of scientific content, originality, relevance and organization. There
Representatives of ministry agencies met in midmonth Pravongviengkham Vientiane, Lao PDR will be up to six winning papers, one each from the six sections of IRRN:
to plan activities — as did the Indonesia Rice Foundation Deputy Permanent Secretary Tel: (+856-21) 413205, 414503 • plant breeding, molecular biology and biotechnology
(IRF). Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
P.O. Box 811, Vientiane, Lao PDR
Fax: (+856-21) 414500
Mobile: (020) 5-508910
• genetic resources
The IRF will work closely with the Indonesian Agency Fax: (+856-21) 412349 Email: FAO-LA@fao.org (and copy to • pest science and management
Email: doae@mao.gov.la personal email: Leena.Kirjavainen@ • soil, nutrient and water management
for Agricultural Research and Development (IAARD) fao.org) • crop management and physiology
in several activities throughout the year. In January or MR. KOUANG DOUANGSILA • socioeconomics
Head, National Rice Research Program KARL GOEPPERT Evaluators will consider all submissions for publication received by IRRN
February, an all-night puppet show will usher into full National Agriculture and Forestry IRRI Representative to Laos between 1 August 2003 and 31 July 2004 that report on research conducted in a
operation a museum dedicated to agro-tourism and rice Research Institute (NAFRI) P.O. Box 4195 developing country and list a NARES rice scientist as the first author (additional
P.O. Box 4195 Vientiane, Lao PDR authors may come from any organization). The format and rules for publishing in IRRN
in the Kuwiran district of Solo, Central Java. In March

KARL GOEPPERT
Vientiane, Lao PDR Tel: (+856-21) 770082, 770201
are available on the Web at www.irri.org/publications/irrn/IRRNInstructions.asp,
and April, the Indonesian Institute for Rice Research kouang@laotel.com Fax: (+856-21) 770082
and back issues can be viewed at www.irri.org/publications/irrn/index.asp. The
Tel: (+856-21) 770082, 770092 k.goeppert@cgiar.org
(IIRR) will organize separate rice walks for policymakers, Fax: (+856-21) 770082 karl@laotel.com first author of each winning paper will receive a US$500 cash prize. Winning papers
students, farmers, extension workers and children designed will be published in the December 2004 issue of IRRN.
In addition, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United
to instill appreciation of rice research and technology. by Indonesian elementary school children. Finally, in Nations will select one winner each from the entries submitted in two categories,
The IRF will hold in May or June its fourth seminar on November or December, Jakarta will be the venue for a Thailand moved ahead at a genetic resources and agronomy (that is, crop management and physiology), for
the cultural aspects of rice, addressing specifically rights special conference on rice and poverty alleviation with the meeting on 14 October that called its International Year of Rice 2004 Global Contest for Best Scientific Articles. The
two FAO winners will be announced in Rome on World Food Day, 16 October.
to rice lands of the indigenous Minangkabau people in expected participation of IAARD, IRF and IRRI. for organizing a grand ceremony For details, contact the IRRN Managing Editor, IRRI, DAPO Box
Bukittinggi, West Sumatra. In July or August, a seminar in Pending the naming of an official national committee celebrating International Year of Rice 7777, Metro Manila, Philippines. Fax: (+63-2) 580-5699, 891-1174. Email:
Jakarta will focus on gender issues in rice production and for International Year of Rice, the interim contact persons at the Queen Sirikit Convention Hall t.rola@cgiar.org.
related activities. for the year are: in Bangkok. Organizers will invite foreign ambassadors,
September and October will bring another celebration representatives of rice-export and -import companies
South Korea will celebrate
of World Food Day and the launch of an IRF-sponsored DR. JOKO BUDIANTO DR. HARYONO and, to preside at the ceremony, one of Their Majesties.
Director General Division Head, Science and Technology International Year of Rice with an
book entitled Rice is Beautiful, a collection of drawings Indonesian Agency for Agricultural and Public Relations Also resolved at the meeting was to organize at the Impact
international conference on 13-
Research and Development (IAARD) IAARD Arena Convention Hall, Muangthong Thani, Bangkok, a
Jl. Raya Ragunan No. 29, Pasarminggu Jl. Raya Ragunan No. 29, Pasarminggu 14 September, prior to the IRRI
Jakarta Selatan 12540 Jakarta Selatan 12540 workshop/poster session on the various aspects of rice
board meeting scheduled for 15-17 September at Suwon.
International Year of Rice, call home! Tel: (+62-21) 7801242
Fax: (+62-21) 7800644
Tel: (+62-21) 78831114
Fax: (+62-21) 7800644
— economic, social and technological. Another meeting
was scheduled for late November.
The plan is to have two committees, international and
Email: webadm@litbang.deptan.go.id Email: webadm@litbang.deptan.go.id national. Moon-Hee Lee, director general of the National
The members of the Thai National Committee for

O
DR. IRSAL LAS DR. SJARIFUDIN BAHARSJAH Crop Experiment Station of the Rural Development
ur thanks to IRRI country offices and the International Programs Director Chairman International Year of Rice (with additional responsibilities
Management Office (IPMO) for news about International Year of Rice Indonesian Institute for Rice Research Indonesia Rice Foundation Administration, is the chair of the national committee.
preparations in host countries. We encourage national committees and Jl. Raya No. 9, Sukamandi 41256 Tel: (+62-21) 7657608 in parentheses) are: Minister, Ministry of Agriculture
Four other committee members have so far been named.
organizations marking the year anywhere in the world to keep us up-to-date Subang, West Java Fax: (+62-21) 7660220 and Cooperatives (Chairman); Permanent Secretary,
regarding plans and to supply reports and photos of events as they happen. Tel: (+62-260) 520157 Email: baharsjah@hotmail.com DR. MOON-HEE LEE (CHAIR) DR. JE-KYU KIM (ACADEMIC
Fax: (+62-260) 520158 Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (Vice Director General SECRETARY)
Contact IRRI Spokesperson Duncan Macintosh, and please copy your message
to Rice Today (p.fredenburg@cgiar.org and a.barclay@cgiar.org). Additionally, Email: balitpa@vision.net.id Chairman); Permanent Secretary, Office of the Prime National Crop Experiment Station, RDA Director, Rice Physiology and
209 Seodun-Dong, Suwon 441-100 Production Division
IRRI’s collaborators can communicate through IRRI IPMO. Media inquiries should Minister; Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Commerce; Republic of Korea National Crop Experiment Station,
go to Mr. Macintosh. Director, Bureau of the Budget; Director General, Public Tel: (+82-31) 290-6601 RDA
Fax: (+82-31) 295-5410 209 Seodun-Dong, Suwon 441-100
Duncan Macintosh Ma. Angeles (“Pong”) Quilloy Laos got a jump on International Relations Department; Governor, Tourism Authority Email: mlee@rda.go.kr Republic of Korea
Spokesperson IPMO IYR Coordinator Year of Rice as the National of Thailand; Director, Thai Airways International Tel: (+82-31) 290-6645
International Rice Research Institute International Rice Research Institute Agricultural Research Center set Public Co., Ltd.; President, Thai Farmer Association; DR. DAE-GEUN OH (INTERNATIONAL Fax: (+82-31) 295-5410
DAPO Box 7777 DAPO Box 7777 SECRETARY) Email: jkk2000@rda.go.kr
Metro Manila Metro Manila a series of VIP visits between late President, Rice Exporters Association; President, Thai Director
International Technical Cooperation DR. KSHIROD K. JENA (MEMBER)
Philippines Philippines October and mid-November 2003. Rice Mills Association; Deputy Permanent Secretary, Center, RDA Temperate Rice Breeder and IRRI
Tel: (+63-2) 580-5600 ext. 2725 Tel: (+63-2) 580-5600 ext. 2837 The visits were scheduled early because the next big Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (Secretary); 250 Seodun-Dong, Suwon 441-707 Representative for Korea
Fax: (+63-2) 580-5699 Fax: (+63-2) 580-5699 Republic of Korea IRRI-Korea Office
Email: d.macintosh@cgiar.org Email: m.quilloy@cgiar.org harvest will not occur until November 2004, near the Director General, Department of Agriculture (Assistant Tel: (+82-31) 299-2270 National Crop Experiment Station,
end of International Year of Rice. Among the scheduled DR. TAWEE KUPKANCHANAKUL Secretary); Director Fax: (+82-31) 293-9359 RDA
The Food and Agriculture Organization has established a special secretariat to visitors were the ambassadors of India, Australia, National Coordinator General, Department of Email: daegeun@rda.go.kr 209 Seodun-Dong, Suwon 441-100
support national committees’ and organizations’ efforts to publicize International IRRI Cooperative Project with Republic of Korea
Year of Rice activities and an information office for media inquiries. Switzerland, Japan and the United States; the deputy the Ministry of Agriculture and Agricultural Extension DR. HUNG-GOO HWANG (GENERAL Tel: (+82-31) 290-6871
Cooperatives SECRETARY) Fax: (+82-31) 294-8185
ambassador of Germany; the country directors of the (Assistant Secretary); and Director, Rice Genetics and Breeding Email: kjena@rda.go.kr
International Year of Rice Secretariat Public Information Officer P.O. Box 9-159, Chatuchak
World Bank and Asian Development Bank; staff of Bangkok 10900 Secretary General, Office Division
FAO, Room C-789 International Year of Rice Secretariat National Crop Experiment Station, RDA
AusAID, Japan International Cooperation Agency, THAILAND of Agricultural Economics
Viale delle Terme Caracalla FAO, Viale delle Terme Caracalla Tel: (+66-2) 5795249, 5799493, 209 Seodun-Dong, Suwon 441-100
0100 Rome, Italy 0100 Rome, Italy U.S. Agency for International Development, and World 5611581 (Assistant Secretary). Republic of Korea
Tel: (+39-06) 5705-5133 Tel: (+39-06) 5705-6257 Food Program; the resident representatives of the Fax: (+66-2) 5614894 For more information, Tel: (+82-31) 290-6635
Fax: (+39-06) 5705-6347 Fax: (+39-06).5705-6347 Office location: Rice Research Fax: (+82-31) 295-5410
Email: Rice2004@fao.org Email: IYR-Information-Officer@fao.org United Nations Development Program and the Food Institute, Department of Agriculture, contact the IRRI-Thailand Email: hghwang@rda.go.kr
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Chatuchak, Bangkok 10900 national coordinator. continued on page 31

28 Rice Today January 2004 Rice Today January 2004 29

 IRRI scientific publication
offers $3,000 in prizes
Indonesia got the process off to a GERMPLASM SPECIALIST Appa Rao (center) explains Lao-IRRI Project work to Nations; and a representative from the Swiss Agency for for research papers
Australian Ambassador Jonathan Thwaites (left) and Claes Kjellström, first
good start in October. Minister of Development and Cooperation office in Hanoi.
Agriculture Bungaran Saragih marked
secretary at the Swedish Embassy responsible for development
cooperation, during an International Year of Rice VIP visit. Host of the 2004 summit of the Association of F or 28 years, International Rice Research Notes (IRRN)
has actively disseminated rice research results to the
larger scientific community. To mark International Year
World Food Day by announcing, at an Southeast Asian Nations, Laos has named its National
of Rice — and to recognize how rice researchers from
event in Ambarawa, Central Java, the Committee for International Year of Rice, as follows. national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES) advance rice-related
island nation’s participation in International Year of Rice H.E. DR. SIENE SAPHANGTHONG (CHAIR) DR. LEENA M. KIRJAVAINEN knowledge and technology — IRRN has announced its Best Article Award.
and, at the same time, the release of a new rice cultivar. Minister of Agriculture FAO Representative The IRRN editorial board and invited reviewers will evaluate submissions
c/o Dr. Phouang Parisak P.O. Box 1640 on the basis of scientific content, originality, relevance and organization. There
Representatives of ministry agencies met in midmonth Pravongviengkham Vientiane, Lao PDR will be up to six winning papers, one each from the six sections of IRRN:
to plan activities — as did the Indonesia Rice Foundation Deputy Permanent Secretary Tel: (+856-21) 413205, 414503 • plant breeding, molecular biology and biotechnology
(IRF). Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
P.O. Box 811, Vientiane, Lao PDR
Fax: (+856-21) 414500
Mobile: (020) 5-508910
• genetic resources
The IRF will work closely with the Indonesian Agency Fax: (+856-21) 412349 Email: FAO-LA@fao.org (and copy to • pest science and management
Email: doae@mao.gov.la personal email: Leena.Kirjavainen@ • soil, nutrient and water management
for Agricultural Research and Development (IAARD) fao.org) • crop management and physiology
in several activities throughout the year. In January or MR. KOUANG DOUANGSILA • socioeconomics
Head, National Rice Research Program KARL GOEPPERT Evaluators will consider all submissions for publication received by IRRN
February, an all-night puppet show will usher into full National Agriculture and Forestry IRRI Representative to Laos between 1 August 2003 and 31 July 2004 that report on research conducted in a
operation a museum dedicated to agro-tourism and rice Research Institute (NAFRI) P.O. Box 4195 developing country and list a NARES rice scientist as the first author (additional
P.O. Box 4195 Vientiane, Lao PDR authors may come from any organization). The format and rules for publishing in IRRN
in the Kuwiran district of Solo, Central Java. In March

KARL GOEPPERT
Vientiane, Lao PDR Tel: (+856-21) 770082, 770201
are available on the Web at www.irri.org/publications/irrn/IRRNInstructions.asp,
and April, the Indonesian Institute for Rice Research kouang@laotel.com Fax: (+856-21) 770082
and back issues can be viewed at www.irri.org/publications/irrn/index.asp. The
Tel: (+856-21) 770082, 770092 k.goeppert@cgiar.org
(IIRR) will organize separate rice walks for policymakers, Fax: (+856-21) 770082 karl@laotel.com first author of each winning paper will receive a US$500 cash prize. Winning papers
students, farmers, extension workers and children designed will be published in the December 2004 issue of IRRN.
In addition, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United
to instill appreciation of rice research and technology. by Indonesian elementary school children. Finally, in Nations will select one winner each from the entries submitted in two categories,
The IRF will hold in May or June its fourth seminar on November or December, Jakarta will be the venue for a Thailand moved ahead at a genetic resources and agronomy (that is, crop management and physiology), for
the cultural aspects of rice, addressing specifically rights special conference on rice and poverty alleviation with the meeting on 14 October that called its International Year of Rice 2004 Global Contest for Best Scientific Articles. The
two FAO winners will be announced in Rome on World Food Day, 16 October.
to rice lands of the indigenous Minangkabau people in expected participation of IAARD, IRF and IRRI. for organizing a grand ceremony For details, contact the IRRN Managing Editor, IRRI, DAPO Box
Bukittinggi, West Sumatra. In July or August, a seminar in Pending the naming of an official national committee celebrating International Year of Rice 7777, Metro Manila, Philippines. Fax: (+63-2) 580-5699, 891-1174. Email:
Jakarta will focus on gender issues in rice production and for International Year of Rice, the interim contact persons at the Queen Sirikit Convention Hall t.rola@cgiar.org.
related activities. for the year are: in Bangkok. Organizers will invite foreign ambassadors,
September and October will bring another celebration representatives of rice-export and -import companies
South Korea will celebrate
of World Food Day and the launch of an IRF-sponsored DR. JOKO BUDIANTO DR. HARYONO and, to preside at the ceremony, one of Their Majesties.
Director General Division Head, Science and Technology International Year of Rice with an
book entitled Rice is Beautiful, a collection of drawings Indonesian Agency for Agricultural and Public Relations Also resolved at the meeting was to organize at the Impact
international conference on 13-
Research and Development (IAARD) IAARD Arena Convention Hall, Muangthong Thani, Bangkok, a
Jl. Raya Ragunan No. 29, Pasarminggu Jl. Raya Ragunan No. 29, Pasarminggu 14 September, prior to the IRRI
Jakarta Selatan 12540 Jakarta Selatan 12540 workshop/poster session on the various aspects of rice
board meeting scheduled for 15-17 September at Suwon.
International Year of Rice, call home! Tel: (+62-21) 7801242
Fax: (+62-21) 7800644
Tel: (+62-21) 78831114
Fax: (+62-21) 7800644
— economic, social and technological. Another meeting
was scheduled for late November.
The plan is to have two committees, international and
Email: webadm@litbang.deptan.go.id Email: webadm@litbang.deptan.go.id national. Moon-Hee Lee, director general of the National
The members of the Thai National Committee for

O
DR. IRSAL LAS DR. SJARIFUDIN BAHARSJAH Crop Experiment Station of the Rural Development
ur thanks to IRRI country offices and the International Programs Director Chairman International Year of Rice (with additional responsibilities
Management Office (IPMO) for news about International Year of Rice Indonesian Institute for Rice Research Indonesia Rice Foundation Administration, is the chair of the national committee.
preparations in host countries. We encourage national committees and Jl. Raya No. 9, Sukamandi 41256 Tel: (+62-21) 7657608 in parentheses) are: Minister, Ministry of Agriculture
Four other committee members have so far been named.
organizations marking the year anywhere in the world to keep us up-to-date Subang, West Java Fax: (+62-21) 7660220 and Cooperatives (Chairman); Permanent Secretary,
regarding plans and to supply reports and photos of events as they happen. Tel: (+62-260) 520157 Email: baharsjah@hotmail.com DR. MOON-HEE LEE (CHAIR) DR. JE-KYU KIM (ACADEMIC
Fax: (+62-260) 520158 Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (Vice Director General SECRETARY)
Contact IRRI Spokesperson Duncan Macintosh, and please copy your message
to Rice Today (p.fredenburg@cgiar.org and a.barclay@cgiar.org). Additionally, Email: balitpa@vision.net.id Chairman); Permanent Secretary, Office of the Prime National Crop Experiment Station, RDA Director, Rice Physiology and
209 Seodun-Dong, Suwon 441-100 Production Division
IRRI’s collaborators can communicate through IRRI IPMO. Media inquiries should Minister; Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Commerce; Republic of Korea National Crop Experiment Station,
go to Mr. Macintosh. Director, Bureau of the Budget; Director General, Public Tel: (+82-31) 290-6601 RDA
Fax: (+82-31) 295-5410 209 Seodun-Dong, Suwon 441-100
Duncan Macintosh Ma. Angeles (“Pong”) Quilloy Laos got a jump on International Relations Department; Governor, Tourism Authority Email: mlee@rda.go.kr Republic of Korea
Spokesperson IPMO IYR Coordinator Year of Rice as the National of Thailand; Director, Thai Airways International Tel: (+82-31) 290-6645
International Rice Research Institute International Rice Research Institute Agricultural Research Center set Public Co., Ltd.; President, Thai Farmer Association; DR. DAE-GEUN OH (INTERNATIONAL Fax: (+82-31) 295-5410
DAPO Box 7777 DAPO Box 7777 SECRETARY) Email: jkk2000@rda.go.kr
Metro Manila Metro Manila a series of VIP visits between late President, Rice Exporters Association; President, Thai Director
International Technical Cooperation DR. KSHIROD K. JENA (MEMBER)
Philippines Philippines October and mid-November 2003. Rice Mills Association; Deputy Permanent Secretary, Center, RDA Temperate Rice Breeder and IRRI
Tel: (+63-2) 580-5600 ext. 2725 Tel: (+63-2) 580-5600 ext. 2837 The visits were scheduled early because the next big Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (Secretary); 250 Seodun-Dong, Suwon 441-707 Representative for Korea
Fax: (+63-2) 580-5699 Fax: (+63-2) 580-5699 Republic of Korea IRRI-Korea Office
Email: d.macintosh@cgiar.org Email: m.quilloy@cgiar.org harvest will not occur until November 2004, near the Director General, Department of Agriculture (Assistant Tel: (+82-31) 299-2270 National Crop Experiment Station,
end of International Year of Rice. Among the scheduled DR. TAWEE KUPKANCHANAKUL Secretary); Director Fax: (+82-31) 293-9359 RDA
The Food and Agriculture Organization has established a special secretariat to visitors were the ambassadors of India, Australia, National Coordinator General, Department of Email: daegeun@rda.go.kr 209 Seodun-Dong, Suwon 441-100
support national committees’ and organizations’ efforts to publicize International IRRI Cooperative Project with Republic of Korea
Year of Rice activities and an information office for media inquiries. Switzerland, Japan and the United States; the deputy the Ministry of Agriculture and Agricultural Extension DR. HUNG-GOO HWANG (GENERAL Tel: (+82-31) 290-6871
Cooperatives SECRETARY) Fax: (+82-31) 294-8185
ambassador of Germany; the country directors of the (Assistant Secretary); and Director, Rice Genetics and Breeding Email: kjena@rda.go.kr
International Year of Rice Secretariat Public Information Officer P.O. Box 9-159, Chatuchak
World Bank and Asian Development Bank; staff of Bangkok 10900 Secretary General, Office Division
FAO, Room C-789 International Year of Rice Secretariat National Crop Experiment Station, RDA
AusAID, Japan International Cooperation Agency, THAILAND of Agricultural Economics
Viale delle Terme Caracalla FAO, Viale delle Terme Caracalla Tel: (+66-2) 5795249, 5799493, 209 Seodun-Dong, Suwon 441-100
0100 Rome, Italy 0100 Rome, Italy U.S. Agency for International Development, and World 5611581 (Assistant Secretary). Republic of Korea
Tel: (+39-06) 5705-5133 Tel: (+39-06) 5705-6257 Food Program; the resident representatives of the Fax: (+66-2) 5614894 For more information, Tel: (+82-31) 290-6635
Fax: (+39-06) 5705-6347 Fax: (+39-06).5705-6347 Office location: Rice Research Fax: (+82-31) 295-5410
Email: Rice2004@fao.org Email: IYR-Information-Officer@fao.org United Nations Development Program and the Food Institute, Department of Agriculture, contact the IRRI-Thailand Email: hghwang@rda.go.kr
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Chatuchak, Bangkok 10900 national coordinator. continued on page 31

28 Rice Today January 2004 Rice Today January 2004 29

IRRI REUNION
The next IRRI alumni reunion will be at
Michigan State University in East Lansing,
Michigan, in June on 25 (Asia Rice Founda-
tion USA annual meeting), 26 and 27 (main
reunion activities), and perhaps 28 (university
activities). Housing and Reunion Central will
be at the Kellog Center on the university cam-
pus, a short walk from downtown. A reunion
room rate of $85 applies to a block of 100
rooms reserved on a first-come, first-served
basis. For reservations, call (+1-800) 875-
5090 and mention the IRRI Alumni Reunion.
If you can’t make 1-800 calls, contact Ver-
mont-based IRRI alumnus Walt Rockwood
(+1-802-685-2282, redrock@sover.net).
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY INTERNSHIP
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR): Technol-
ogy Transfer, Use and Management is an in-
ternship program on 11-16 July at Michigan
State University (MSU) focused on technol-
ogy transfer, use and management within the
context of the General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade (GATT)/World Trade Organization
(WTO). The internship program will provide
hands-on training in the day-to-day handling
of IPR issues in university, business and le-
gal environments. Application deadline is 15
June. The nonrefundable registration fee is
US$250, and the course fee (nonrefundable
after 30 June) is $3,100, including instruction,
information packages, local travel, meals and
lodging. Checks should be payable to Michi-
gan State University and mailed to Internship
Coordinator, Dr. K.M. Maredia, Institute of
International Agriculture, 416 Plant and Soil
Sciences Bldg., Michigan State University,
East Lansing, MI 48824, USA. Other contact
information: tel (1-517) 353-5262, fax (+1-517)
432-1982, email kmaredia@msu.edu.
FERTILIZER TRAINING
The International Fertilizer Development
Center (IFDC) has announced its schedule of
training programs for 2004. Program descrip-
tions and online registration are available at
www.ifdc.org: Integrated Soil Fertility Man-
agement (in French) on 19-23 April in Lome,
Togo; Innovative Management Practices for
Nitrogen Use Efficiency on 26-30 April in
Dhaka, Bangladesh; Indigenous Resource
Development for the Fertilizer Sector on 31
May-4 June in Dakar, Senegal; Agricultural
Input Regulatory Systems on 16-20 August
in Pretoria, South Africa; Market Information
Systems on 13-17 September in Accra, Ghana;
and Fertilizer Marketing Management on 22
November-3 December in Dubai, United Arab
Emirates. IFDC reserves the right to cancel
any program or change the dates and/or
venue of any program without liability for
compensation.
30
OTHER CONFERENCES, MEETINGS AND WORKSHOPS continued from page 29
G. Kalloo, with members drawn from various
Event Contact Date/Location
In Bangladesh, Hamid Miah, IRRI- organizations. Committee meetings have so far developed
International Conference on Information www.epegenorth.gr/secreteriat.html 18-20 Mar / Thessaloniki, Greece
Systems & Innovative Technologies in Bangladesh liaison scientist, has a broad agenda for celebrating the year and calculated
Agriculture, Food and Environment assumed lead planning responsibility expenditures for various activities.
16th Biennial International Plant Resistance http://wheat.pw.usda.gov/ggpages/ 21-24 Mar / Baton Rouge, USA for IRRI-Bangladesh activities The National Confederation of Agriculture is planning
to Insects Workshop and Conference calendarframe.html
Assuring Food and Nutrition Security in (IFPRI) s.hill-lee@cgiar.org 1-3 Apr / Kampala, Uganda related to International Year of Rice. an Indian Agricultural Congress in March to mark
Africa by 2020 Assisting Dr. Miah is K.M. Enamul Kabir, administrative International Year of Rice. Two farmers associations,
11th International Symposium on xrzhang@chem.tsinghua.edu.cn 5-8 May / Beijing, China coordinator. After exploring possibilities for collaboration one from Uttar Pradesh and one from Haryana, have
Analytical Chemistry
on events with the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, committed themselves to celebrating the year with various
15th International Plant Protection Congress ippc2003@ipmchina.net 11-16 May / Beijing, China
ISTA Seed Symposium 2004 www.seedtest.org 13-15 May / Budapest, Hungary Forum for Information Dissemination on Agriculture, activities including seminars, farmers fairs and field visits.
BIO 2004 International Biotechnology www.bio.org 6-9 Jun / San Francisco, USA Rice Foundation, Department of Agricultural Extension, Several state agricultural universities are finalizing plans
Convention and Exhibition
7th International Conference on Philippine iias@let.leidenuniv.nl, www.iias.nl/ 16-19 Jun / Leiden- Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation, and for activities to mark the year.
Studies: “The Philippines: Changing iias/agenda/icophil Amsterdam, Netherlands representatives of rice exporters, Dr. Miah will initiate
Landscapes, Humanscapes and DR. G. KALLOO (CHAIR) DR. R.K. SINGH
a meeting with the Ministry of Agriculture. One focus Deputy Director General (Crop IRRI Representative
Mindscapes in a Globalizing World”
5th International Postharvest Symposium postharvest2004@unimi.it, 6-11 Jun / Verona, Italy of activities will likely be at least one subproject under Science) International Rice Research Institute
ICAR Horticulture Division 1st Floor, CG Block, NASC Complex
www.soihs.it/postharvest2004 the project Poverty Elimination Through Rice Research Krishi Anusandhan Bhawan II Dev Prakash Sastri Marg, Pusa
Agricultural Biotechnology: Finding Common NABC@cornell.edu 13-15 Jun / Guelph, Canada Assistance.
New Delhi 110 012 New Delhi 110012
International Goals Tel: (+91-11) 2585-1068, 2584- Tel: (+91-11) 2584-1292/1295/
7th International Symposium on Inorganic www.enaag.org 23-27 Jun / Wageningen, 2284/85/62/70/71 Ext. 1422 2803/3299/3802
DR. M.A. HAMID MIAH MR. K.M. ENAMUL KABIR
Nitrogen Assimilation in Plants: From the Netherlands Liaison Scientist Administrative Coordinator gkalloo@icar1.nic.in Fax: (+91-11) 2584-1801
Genome to the Agro-Ecosystems IRRI-Bangladesh IRRI-Bangladesh r.k.singh@cgiar.org
COL’s 3rd (Biennial) Pan-Commonwealth pam.wyse@aut.ac.nz, 4-8 Jul / Dunedin, New G.P.O. Box 64 G.P.O. Box 64
Ramna Dhaka 1000 Ramna Dhaka 1000
Forum on Open Learning www.col.org/pcf3 Zealand
American Phytopathological Society Annual aps@scisoc.org, www.scisoc.org 24-28 Jul / Spokane, USA Tel: (+880-2) 882-7210, 881-7639, Tel: (+880-2) 882-7210, 881-7639,
881-7640 881-7640
Meeting/4th International Weed Science Fax: (+880-2) 882-5341 Fax: (+880-2) 882-5341 China has selected Tang Shengyao
Congress h_miah@bdonline.com enamulk@dhaka.net
31st Annual Meeting of the Plant Growth www.griffin.peachnet.edu/ 31 Jul-4 Aug / Charleston, USA Office location: House 39, Road 23, Office location: House 39, Road 23,
as the official in charge of handling
Regulation Society of America pgrsa/events.html Block J, Banani, Dhaka 1213 Block J, Banani, Dhaka 1213 International Year of Rice issues.
American Society of Agricultural Engineers www.asae.org/meetings/index.html 1-4 Aug / Ottawa, Canada
Annual International Meeting
12th International Symposium on www.biologie.fu-berlin.de/SIP12-Berlin 7-12 Aug / Berlin, Germany
Insect-Plant Relationships In India, a national committee MR. TANG SHENGYAO
IFDC 2004: Agricultural Input Regulatory hrd@ifdc.org, hrdu@ifdc.org, 16-20 Aug / Pretoria, South Division Chief
has been constituted by the Indian International Cooperation Department, Ministry of Agriculture
Systems www.ifdc.org Africa
Council of Agricultural Research #11 Nongzhanguan Nanli, Beijing 100026, PROC
Tel: (+86-10) 6419-2489
2004 IRRI GROUP TRAINING COURSES (TENTATIVE LISTING) under the chairmanship of its deputy Fax: (+86-10) 6500-4635
Course Duration Target date Coordinator(s)/ director general for crop science, tangshy@agri.gov.cn
(wk) course facilitator
*English for Conversation 2 9-20 Feb A Arboleda/D Gavino
Rice Breeding (with IRIS component) 3 9-27 Feb G Atlin/E Castro
ARBN Genomics Workshop 1 23-26 Feb H Leong/A Arboleda
Developing Integrated Nutrient
Management Options for Delivery
Rice Production I
2
2
1-12 Mar
15-26 Mar
R Buresh/D Gavino
V Bala/E Castro
2004 CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS
Basic Experimental Designs and Data 1 19-23 Apr G McLaren/
Analysis Using IRRISTAT for Windows V Bartolome/S Magadia Japan-IRRI rice research conference Korean international rice conference
Scientific Writing and Presentation 2 17-28 May D Shires/A Arboleda IRRI’s flagship rice research conference in 2004 will South Korea will host an international conference on 13-14
Introduction to the SAS System 1 21-25 Jun G McLaren/V Bartolome/ take place in Japan on 4-7 November. Organized by the September on the theme Rice Science for Improving Human
S Magadia
*Intensive English 1 12 5 Jul-10 Sep A Arboleda/D Gavino Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Welfare in the 21st Century. The meeting will take place in
Genetic Engineering, Food Safety & Awareness 1 Sep S Datta/D Gavino conference will be held in Tsukuba City, 40 km northwest of the city of Suwon. For details, please contact Dr. K.K. Jena at
Rice Production II 2 6-17 Sep V Bala/E Castro New Tokyo International Airport, and will feature the latest kjena@rda.go.kr.
Water Management 1 Oct B Bouman in rice research from all over the world. For details, please
Leadership Course for Asian Women in Ag R & D 2 8-19 Nov T Paris/G Zarsadias
*Intensive English 2 3 15 Nov- 3 Dec A Arboleda/D Gavino
contact Dr. K.L. Heong at k.heong@cgiar.org. World Food Day
Analysis of Unbalanced Data 1 15-19 Nov G McLaren/V Bartolome/ On 16 October, all countries will celebrate World Food Day.
S Magadia FAO International Year of Rice launch conference FAO will lead these international activities with its own
Grain Quality Management 1 TBA J Rickman/D Gavino The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN will special events at its headquarters in Rome. In addition,
Intellectual Property Rights 1 TBA TBA hold its International Year of Rice inaugural conference — Rice most rice-producing and -consuming countries will organize
IN-COUNTRY COURSES in the Global Economy and Sustainable Production Systems special rice-focused World Food Day activities. For details,
ORYZA2000, China 1 Apr B Bouman
Rice Technology Transfer Systems in Asia (RDA) 2 27 Sep-8 Oct J Lapitan/G Zarsadias
— on 12-13 February at its headquarters in Rome, Italy. For please visit the official International Year of Rice Web site at
Grain Quality Management, Cambodia 1 TBA J Rickman details, please visit the official International Year of Rice Web www.rice2004.org.
Grain Quality Management, Bangladesh 1 TBA J Rickman site at www.rice2004.org.
Water Management, Myanmar 1 TBA J Rickman FAO Asia-Pacific ministerial conference
Tractor Training, India 1 TBA J Rickman Mekong rice and development conference FAO will hold on 17-21 May its annual Asia-Pacific
Integrated Pest Management, Malaysia 2 TBA KL Heong
Integrated Pest Management, Vietnam 2 TBA KL Heong Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will ministerial conference in Beijing, which will likely include
Integrated Pest Management, Thailand 2 TBA KL Heong host on 15-17 October in Ho Chi Minh City a 3-day conference activities focused on rice. For details, please visit the official
Integrated Pest Management, Iran 2 TBA KL Heong focused on rice and development. For more details, please International Year of Rice Web site at www.rice2004.org.
TBA = to be arranged. * = after 5 pm classes only. For details, email IRRI-Training@cgiar.org. contact Dr. K.L. Heong at k.heong@cgiar.org.
Rice Today January 2004 Rice Today January 2004 31
IRRI REUNION
The next IRRI alumni reunion will be at
Michigan State University in East Lansing,
Michigan, in June on 25 (Asia Rice Founda-
tion USA annual meeting), 26 and 27 (main
reunion activities), and perhaps 28 (university
activities). Housing and Reunion Central will
be at the Kellog Center on the university cam-
pus, a short walk from downtown. A reunion
room rate of $85 applies to a block of 100
rooms reserved on a first-come, first-served
basis. For reservations, call (+1-800) 875-
5090 and mention the IRRI Alumni Reunion.
If you can’t make 1-800 calls, contact Ver-
mont-based IRRI alumnus Walt Rockwood
(+1-802-685-2282, redrock@sover.net).
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY INTERNSHIP
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR): Technol-
ogy Transfer, Use and Management is an in-
ternship program on 11-16 July at Michigan
State University (MSU) focused on technol-
ogy transfer, use and management within the
context of the General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade (GATT)/World Trade Organization
(WTO). The internship program will provide
hands-on training in the day-to-day handling
of IPR issues in university, business and le-
gal environments. Application deadline is 15
June. The nonrefundable registration fee is
US$250, and the course fee (nonrefundable
after 30 June) is $3,100, including instruction,
information packages, local travel, meals and
lodging. Checks should be payable to Michi-
gan State University and mailed to Internship
Coordinator, Dr. K.M. Maredia, Institute of
International Agriculture, 416 Plant and Soil
Sciences Bldg., Michigan State University,
East Lansing, MI 48824, USA. Other contact
information: tel (1-517) 353-5262, fax (+1-517)
432-1982, email kmaredia@msu.edu.
FERTILIZER TRAINING
The International Fertilizer Development
Center (IFDC) has announced its schedule of
training programs for 2004. Program descrip-
tions and online registration are available at
www.ifdc.org: Integrated Soil Fertility Man-
agement (in French) on 19-23 April in Lome,
Togo; Innovative Management Practices for
Nitrogen Use Efficiency on 26-30 April in
Dhaka, Bangladesh; Indigenous Resource
Development for the Fertilizer Sector on 31
May-4 June in Dakar, Senegal; Agricultural
Input Regulatory Systems on 16-20 August
in Pretoria, South Africa; Market Information
Systems on 13-17 September in Accra, Ghana;
and Fertilizer Marketing Management on 22
November-3 December in Dubai, United Arab
Emirates. IFDC reserves the right to cancel
any program or change the dates and/or
venue of any program without liability for
compensation.
30
OTHER CONFERENCES, MEETINGS AND WORKSHOPS continued from page 29
G. Kalloo, with members drawn from various
Event Contact Date/Location
In Bangladesh, Hamid Miah, IRRI- organizations. Committee meetings have so far developed
International Conference on Information www.epegenorth.gr/secreteriat.html 18-20 Mar / Thessaloniki, Greece
Systems & Innovative Technologies in Bangladesh liaison scientist, has a broad agenda for celebrating the year and calculated
Agriculture, Food and Environment assumed lead planning responsibility expenditures for various activities.
16th Biennial International Plant Resistance http://wheat.pw.usda.gov/ggpages/ 21-24 Mar / Baton Rouge, USA for IRRI-Bangladesh activities The National Confederation of Agriculture is planning
to Insects Workshop and Conference calendarframe.html
Assuring Food and Nutrition Security in (IFPRI) s.hill-lee@cgiar.org 1-3 Apr / Kampala, Uganda related to International Year of Rice. an Indian Agricultural Congress in March to mark
Africa by 2020 Assisting Dr. Miah is K.M. Enamul Kabir, administrative International Year of Rice. Two farmers associations,
11th International Symposium on xrzhang@chem.tsinghua.edu.cn 5-8 May / Beijing, China coordinator. After exploring possibilities for collaboration one from Uttar Pradesh and one from Haryana, have
Analytical Chemistry
on events with the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, committed themselves to celebrating the year with various
15th International Plant Protection Congress ippc2003@ipmchina.net 11-16 May / Beijing, China
ISTA Seed Symposium 2004 www.seedtest.org 13-15 May / Budapest, Hungary Forum for Information Dissemination on Agriculture, activities including seminars, farmers fairs and field visits.
BIO 2004 International Biotechnology www.bio.org 6-9 Jun / San Francisco, USA Rice Foundation, Department of Agricultural Extension, Several state agricultural universities are finalizing plans
Convention and Exhibition
7th International Conference on Philippine iias@let.leidenuniv.nl, www.iias.nl/ 16-19 Jun / Leiden- Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation, and for activities to mark the year.
Studies: “The Philippines: Changing iias/agenda/icophil Amsterdam, Netherlands representatives of rice exporters, Dr. Miah will initiate
Landscapes, Humanscapes and DR. G. KALLOO (CHAIR) DR. R.K. SINGH
a meeting with the Ministry of Agriculture. One focus Deputy Director General (Crop IRRI Representative
Mindscapes in a Globalizing World”
5th International Postharvest Symposium postharvest2004@unimi.it, 6-11 Jun / Verona, Italy of activities will likely be at least one subproject under Science) International Rice Research Institute
ICAR Horticulture Division 1st Floor, CG Block, NASC Complex
www.soihs.it/postharvest2004 the project Poverty Elimination Through Rice Research Krishi Anusandhan Bhawan II Dev Prakash Sastri Marg, Pusa
Agricultural Biotechnology: Finding Common NABC@cornell.edu 13-15 Jun / Guelph, Canada Assistance.
New Delhi 110 012 New Delhi 110012
International Goals Tel: (+91-11) 2585-1068, 2584- Tel: (+91-11) 2584-1292/1295/
7th International Symposium on Inorganic www.enaag.org 23-27 Jun / Wageningen, 2284/85/62/70/71 Ext. 1422 2803/3299/3802
DR. M.A. HAMID MIAH MR. K.M. ENAMUL KABIR
Nitrogen Assimilation in Plants: From the Netherlands Liaison Scientist Administrative Coordinator gkalloo@icar1.nic.in Fax: (+91-11) 2584-1801
Genome to the Agro-Ecosystems IRRI-Bangladesh IRRI-Bangladesh r.k.singh@cgiar.org
COL’s 3rd (Biennial) Pan-Commonwealth pam.wyse@aut.ac.nz, 4-8 Jul / Dunedin, New G.P.O. Box 64 G.P.O. Box 64
Ramna Dhaka 1000 Ramna Dhaka 1000
Forum on Open Learning www.col.org/pcf3 Zealand
American Phytopathological Society Annual aps@scisoc.org, www.scisoc.org 24-28 Jul / Spokane, USA Tel: (+880-2) 882-7210, 881-7639, Tel: (+880-2) 882-7210, 881-7639,
881-7640 881-7640
Meeting/4th International Weed Science Fax: (+880-2) 882-5341 Fax: (+880-2) 882-5341 China has selected Tang Shengyao
Congress h_miah@bdonline.com enamulk@dhaka.net
31st Annual Meeting of the Plant Growth www.griffin.peachnet.edu/ 31 Jul-4 Aug / Charleston, USA Office location: House 39, Road 23, Office location: House 39, Road 23,
as the official in charge of handling
Regulation Society of America pgrsa/events.html Block J, Banani, Dhaka 1213 Block J, Banani, Dhaka 1213 International Year of Rice issues.
American Society of Agricultural Engineers www.asae.org/meetings/index.html 1-4 Aug / Ottawa, Canada
Annual International Meeting
12th International Symposium on www.biologie.fu-berlin.de/SIP12-Berlin 7-12 Aug / Berlin, Germany
Insect-Plant Relationships In India, a national committee MR. TANG SHENGYAO
IFDC 2004: Agricultural Input Regulatory hrd@ifdc.org, hrdu@ifdc.org, 16-20 Aug / Pretoria, South Division Chief
has been constituted by the Indian International Cooperation Department, Ministry of Agriculture
Systems www.ifdc.org Africa
Council of Agricultural Research #11 Nongzhanguan Nanli, Beijing 100026, PROC
Tel: (+86-10) 6419-2489
2004 IRRI GROUP TRAINING COURSES (TENTATIVE LISTING) under the chairmanship of its deputy Fax: (+86-10) 6500-4635
Course Duration Target date Coordinator(s)/ director general for crop science, tangshy@agri.gov.cn
(wk) course facilitator
*English for Conversation 2 9-20 Feb A Arboleda/D Gavino
Rice Breeding (with IRIS component) 3 9-27 Feb G Atlin/E Castro
ARBN Genomics Workshop 1 23-26 Feb H Leong/A Arboleda
Developing Integrated Nutrient
Management Options for Delivery
Rice Production I
2
2
1-12 Mar
15-26 Mar
R Buresh/D Gavino
V Bala/E Castro
2004 CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS
Basic Experimental Designs and Data 1 19-23 Apr G McLaren/
Analysis Using IRRISTAT for Windows V Bartolome/S Magadia Japan-IRRI rice research conference Korean international rice conference
Scientific Writing and Presentation 2 17-28 May D Shires/A Arboleda IRRI’s flagship rice research conference in 2004 will South Korea will host an international conference on 13-14
Introduction to the SAS System 1 21-25 Jun G McLaren/V Bartolome/ take place in Japan on 4-7 November. Organized by the September on the theme Rice Science for Improving Human
S Magadia
*Intensive English 1 12 5 Jul-10 Sep A Arboleda/D Gavino Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Welfare in the 21st Century. The meeting will take place in
Genetic Engineering, Food Safety & Awareness 1 Sep S Datta/D Gavino conference will be held in Tsukuba City, 40 km northwest of the city of Suwon. For details, please contact Dr. K.K. Jena at
Rice Production II 2 6-17 Sep V Bala/E Castro New Tokyo International Airport, and will feature the latest kjena@rda.go.kr.
Water Management 1 Oct B Bouman in rice research from all over the world. For details, please
Leadership Course for Asian Women in Ag R & D 2 8-19 Nov T Paris/G Zarsadias
*Intensive English 2 3 15 Nov- 3 Dec A Arboleda/D Gavino
contact Dr. K.L. Heong at k.heong@cgiar.org. World Food Day
Analysis of Unbalanced Data 1 15-19 Nov G McLaren/V Bartolome/ On 16 October, all countries will celebrate World Food Day.
S Magadia FAO International Year of Rice launch conference FAO will lead these international activities with its own
Grain Quality Management 1 TBA J Rickman/D Gavino The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN will special events at its headquarters in Rome. In addition,
Intellectual Property Rights 1 TBA TBA hold its International Year of Rice inaugural conference — Rice most rice-producing and -consuming countries will organize
IN-COUNTRY COURSES in the Global Economy and Sustainable Production Systems special rice-focused World Food Day activities. For details,
ORYZA2000, China 1 Apr B Bouman
Rice Technology Transfer Systems in Asia (RDA) 2 27 Sep-8 Oct J Lapitan/G Zarsadias
— on 12-13 February at its headquarters in Rome, Italy. For please visit the official International Year of Rice Web site at
Grain Quality Management, Cambodia 1 TBA J Rickman details, please visit the official International Year of Rice Web www.rice2004.org.
Grain Quality Management, Bangladesh 1 TBA J Rickman site at www.rice2004.org.
Water Management, Myanmar 1 TBA J Rickman FAO Asia-Pacific ministerial conference
Tractor Training, India 1 TBA J Rickman Mekong rice and development conference FAO will hold on 17-21 May its annual Asia-Pacific
Integrated Pest Management, Malaysia 2 TBA KL Heong
Integrated Pest Management, Vietnam 2 TBA KL Heong Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will ministerial conference in Beijing, which will likely include
Integrated Pest Management, Thailand 2 TBA KL Heong host on 15-17 October in Ho Chi Minh City a 3-day conference activities focused on rice. For details, please visit the official
Integrated Pest Management, Iran 2 TBA KL Heong focused on rice and development. For more details, please International Year of Rice Web site at www.rice2004.org.
TBA = to be arranged. * = after 5 pm classes only. For details, email IRRI-Training@cgiar.org. contact Dr. K.L. Heong at k.heong@cgiar.org.
Rice Today January 2004 Rice Today January 2004 31
 PEOPLE
J.K. LADHA
GOVERNOR VISHU KANT SHASTRI (left) of the In-
dian state of Uttar Pradesh presents IRRI Director
General Ronald Cantrell with an honorary doctorate
degree from the Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel Uni-
versity of Agriculture and Technology. The degree
recognizes IRRI’s outstanding collaboration, under
Dr. Cantrell’s guidance, with university scientists to
develop new technologies to improve the lives and
social status of Indian farmers.
Partners in progress
S
tephen Hall has been named the in-
coming director general of the World-
Fish Center, effective in February. Dr.
Hall’s recent positions include professor
of marine biology at Flinders University
and director of the Australian Institute of
Marine Science. He succeeds Meryl Wil-
liams, who has led the WorldFish Center
for a decade.
Shellemiah Okoth Keya has been
appointed director of research at WARDA,
effective 15 January. Dr. Keya’s career in
research management and administration,
university teaching, scientific publishing,
and research consultancy spans more than
3 decades. He was executive secretary to
the CGIAR Technical Advisory Commit-
tee (1996-2000) and its replacement, the
Interim Science Council (2001-03).
Wilfried Thalwitz, former CGIAR
chairman (1990-91), died on 3 September
in Brussels. He was 71. During his tenure,
the CGIAR expanded to include centers and
programs on water management, bananas
and plantains, forestry, agroforestry, and
aquatic resources. He is survived by his
wife, Margret, and two children.
32
Keeping up with IRRI staff
R onald L. Phillips of the U.S. and
Ruth Oniang’o of Kenya have been
elected to the IRRI Board of Trustees, 2004-
06. Dr. Phillips is Regents’ Professor and
McKnight Presidential Chair in Genomics
and director of the Center for Microbial and
Plant Genomics, University of Minnesota.
Prof. Oniang’o is a professor of food science
and nutrition at Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta
University of Agriculture and Technology.
They replace Mike Gale, who is resigning
to join the Science Council of the Consulta-
tive Group on International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR), and Angeline Kamba,
the outgoing board chair.
Zhao Kai-jun became IRRI liaison
scientist to China on 30 September. Dr.
Zhao replaces Tang Sheng-xiang, who
is returning after 6 years with IRRI to the
China National Rice Research Institute
in Hangzhou, where he will continue as
national coordinator of the International
Network for Genetic Evaluation of Rice.
Gerard F. Barry joined IRRI on 3
November as the new Golden Rice Network
coordinator. Dr. Barry, who was director of
research for product and technology coop-
eration at Monsanto headquarters in St.
Louis, Missouri, works with plant breed-
ers, biotechnologists, intellectual property
rights specialists, and biosafety and regula-
tory agencies in Asia to facilitate the devel-
opment and deployment of Golden Rice.
Zhikang Li, molecular geneticist in
Plant Breeding, Genetics and Biochemistry,
has begun a 3-year posting at the Chinese
Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS).
Dr. Li continues to contribute to IRRI
research in gene discovery, allele mining
and germplasm improvement while under
appointment at CAAS as chief scientist of
the National Key Project on Crop Genetic
Resources and Genetic Improvement.
Robert S. Zeigler, former IRRI
plant pathologist (1992-98), has been
named director of the challenge program
Unlocking Genetic Diversity in Crops for
the Resource-Poor. Dr. Zeigler has more
than 20 years’ experience in international
agricultural research and management. He
will be based at the International Maize and
Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico.
Keijiro Otsuka, incoming chair of
IRRI’s Board of Trustees, was elected on
22 August the International Association
of Agricultural Economists vice president
for programs. Prabhu Pingali, former
IRRI economist (1987-96) and current
director of the Division of Agricultural and
Development Economics at the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the UN, was
Rice Today January 2004
elected president of the 3,000-member
professional organization.
David Johnson, principal scientist
since 1999 at the Natural Resources Insti-
tute of the University of Greenwich, U.K.,
and earlier seconded for 7 years to the West
Africa Rice Development Association (WAR-
DA) – The Africa Rice Center, joined IRRI in
September as a weed scientist in Crop, Soil
and Water Sciences (CSWS). He succeeds
Andrew Martin Mortimer, who served
as weed ecologist at IRRI from 1996.
Christian Witt, affiliate scientist
since 1998 and coordinator of the soil nu-
trition project Reaching Toward Optimum
Productivity in CSWS, and a PhD researcher
at IRRI in 1993-96, returned to Germany in
December.
Adam Barclay, IRRI’s first Australian
youth ambassador, arrived in September for a
year’s assignment in Visitors and Information
Services and as deputy editor of Rice Today.
Monina Escalada, a long-time IRRI
collaborator, became an international re-
search fellow in IRRI’s International Pro-
grams Management Office in October 2002,
a change this page failed to note until now.
Gone ahead
Peter Cox, agricultural economist with the
Cambodia-IRRI-Australia Project (CIAP),
1998-2001, succumbed to cancer in Bris-
bane on 20 October. From 2001, Dr. Cox
was the technical advisor to the director of
the Catholic Relief Service. Prior to his stint
at IRRI, he lived and worked in Zambia,
Bangladesh, Tanzania, Papua New Guinea,
India and his native Australia.
Jose “Joe” Burgos, intrepid ad-
vocate of press freedom and founder of
alternative Philippine newspapers, died on
16 November. He was 62. Mr. Burgos, who
served as media consultant for the annual
general meeting of the CGIAR in Manila in
October 2002, initiated in 1998 the organi-
zation of the Philippine branch of the Asia
Rice Media Advocacy Network.
Dennis Melvin Wood, former crop
protection specialist at IRRI (1983-85),
died on 25 October in a hunting accident
in Utah. He was 61. Following a 2-year
mission in India with the Peace Corps, Dr.
Wood embarked on a career in international
agricultural development, living and work-
ing in the Philippines, Vietnam, Morocco,
Indonesia, Holland and Tanzania.
Zosimo Q. Pizarro, former IRRI
associate director of human resources
(1984-91), passed away on 8 November. Mr.
Pizarro also served IRRI as administrative
assistant (1962-69), associate executive of-
ficer (1970-74) and senior administrative
associate (1975-83).
DONORS CORNER
Cooperating for peace
by H.-Jochen de Haas
F
ormer German Chancellor
Willy Brandt once described
development aid as “the
peace policy of the 21st century.”
Cooperation for development, to
use the modern phrase, remains
an important priority of the Ger-
man government and the Federal
Ministry for Economic Cooperation
and Development (Bundesminis-
terium für wirtschaftliche Zusam-
menarbeit und Entwicklung, or
BMZ), which is responsible for the
German government’s develop-
ment policy.
BMZ’s mission relates mainly
to the following areas:
• helping to fashion the global
framework for development,
• formulating bilateral and multi-
lateral support strategies,
OLIVER HANSCHKE
• supporting partner countries’
development programs and
projects and the development
cooperation programs of NGOs,
H.-JOCHEN DE HAAS is the head of the Rural Development and Global
and
Food Security Division of BMZ.
• aiding in monitoring and evalu-
ating the use of funds.
BMZ does not implement indi-
vidual development cooperation projects
and programs itself. This is the task of
independent organizations working on its
behalf. The largest two of those organiza-
tions are the Kreditanstalt für Wieder-
aufbau, which provides concessional loans core funding. The rest is targeted, or
to developing countries, and the Deutsche
Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenar-
beit (GTZ) GmbH, which supports techni-
cal cooperation.
BMZ recognizes the need for urgent
action to help the 800 million people
who face hunger every day. Central to
improving the livelihoods of millions
of rural people in developing countries,
fighting hunger and alleviating poverty on
an environmentally sustainable basis is
BMZ’s support for the research centers of
the Consultative Group on International
Agricultural Research (CGIAR). BMZ, a
member of the CGIAR from the group’s
beginning and a committed supporter
of its research agenda, ranks among its
top 10 investors, contributing financial,
scientific, human and technical resources.
Since 1971, German financial support for
the research work carried out at the cen-
ters has surpassed US$300 million.
Today, a quarter of Germany’s finan-
cial support for the CGIAR is unrestricted
project, funding that is awarded based on
guidelines set by both the CGIAR and BMZ. ment, served as IRRI’s director general
BMZ has commissioned a GTZ proj-
ect, the Advisory Service on Agricultural
Research for Development (Beratungs-
gruppe Entwicklungsorientierte Agrar-
forschung, or BEAF), to administer Ger-
many’s targeted funding of international
agricultural research. BEAF has offices in
Bonn and at the GTZ head office in Esch-
born. As part of its mandate, BEAF advises increasingly important question of how
BMZ on all issues related to international
agricultural research for development. Its
objectives are to organize and administer
German support to the CGIAR and some
other international agricultural research
centers, establish and improve contacts
between research centers and development them.
Rice Today January 2004
projects, link these centers with the
active German research commu-
nity, and raise public awareness for
international agricultural research
for development.
BEAF is supported by an advi-
sory committee of members from
public research organizations,
the private sector and NGOs. The
multidisciplinary group provides
advice on German strategies in
international agricultural research
and gives recommendations on
project funding. BEAF cooperates
closely with development organi-
zations such as Capacity Building
International (Internationale
Weiterbildung und Entwicklung
gGmbH, or InWEnt) and scientific
associations such as the Council
for Tropical and Subtropical Agri-
cultural Research (Arbeitsgemein-
schaft für Tropische und Subtrop-
ische Agrarforschung, or ATSAF).
BEAF also hosts the co-secretariat
of the national German Forum
on Research for Development
(Deutsches Forum für Entwick-
lungsorientierte Forschung, or DFOR).
Rice is life for 2.5 billion people
around the world, and Germany is pleased
to have found a valuable partner in IRRI.
Since 1974, German support for IRRI’s
research has totaled approximately
US$30 million. Klaus Lampe, a renowned
German specialist in agricultural develop-
in 1988-95, and German researchers
continue to be active at the institute. Ger-
many supports a broad range of research
areas, from the development of new rice
varieties suitable for various rice ecosys-
tems to genome and biodiversity studies,
improved management of soil and water,
integrated pest management, and the
rice supplies can be assured in the context
of global warming.
These challenges are likely to grow
in the future. The German government,
BMZ and its implementing partners are
committed to working with IRRI to meet
33
 PEOPLE
J.K. LADHA
GOVERNOR VISHU KANT SHASTRI (left) of the In-
dian state of Uttar Pradesh presents IRRI Director
General Ronald Cantrell with an honorary doctorate
degree from the Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel Uni-
versity of Agriculture and Technology. The degree
recognizes IRRI’s outstanding collaboration, under
Dr. Cantrell’s guidance, with university scientists to
develop new technologies to improve the lives and
social status of Indian farmers.
Partners in progress
S
tephen Hall has been named the in-
coming director general of the World-
Fish Center, effective in February. Dr.
Hall’s recent positions include professor
of marine biology at Flinders University
and director of the Australian Institute of
Marine Science. He succeeds Meryl Wil-
liams, who has led the WorldFish Center
for a decade.
Shellemiah Okoth Keya has been
appointed director of research at WARDA,
effective 15 January. Dr. Keya’s career in
research management and administration,
university teaching, scientific publishing,
and research consultancy spans more than
3 decades. He was executive secretary to
the CGIAR Technical Advisory Commit-
tee (1996-2000) and its replacement, the
Interim Science Council (2001-03).
Wilfried Thalwitz, former CGIAR
chairman (1990-91), died on 3 September
in Brussels. He was 71. During his tenure,
the CGIAR expanded to include centers and
programs on water management, bananas
and plantains, forestry, agroforestry, and
aquatic resources. He is survived by his
wife, Margret, and two children.
32
Keeping up with IRRI staff
R onald L. Phillips of the U.S. and
Ruth Oniang’o of Kenya have been
elected to the IRRI Board of Trustees, 2004-
06. Dr. Phillips is Regents’ Professor and
McKnight Presidential Chair in Genomics
and director of the Center for Microbial and
Plant Genomics, University of Minnesota.
Prof. Oniang’o is a professor of food science
and nutrition at Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta
University of Agriculture and Technology.
They replace Mike Gale, who is resigning
to join the Science Council of the Consulta-
tive Group on International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR), and Angeline Kamba,
the outgoing board chair.
Zhao Kai-jun became IRRI liaison
scientist to China on 30 September. Dr.
Zhao replaces Tang Sheng-xiang, who
is returning after 6 years with IRRI to the
China National Rice Research Institute
in Hangzhou, where he will continue as
national coordinator of the International
Network for Genetic Evaluation of Rice.
Gerard F. Barry joined IRRI on 3
November as the new Golden Rice Network
coordinator. Dr. Barry, who was director of
research for product and technology coop-
eration at Monsanto headquarters in St.
Louis, Missouri, works with plant breed-
ers, biotechnologists, intellectual property
rights specialists, and biosafety and regula-
tory agencies in Asia to facilitate the devel-
opment and deployment of Golden Rice.
Zhikang Li, molecular geneticist in
Plant Breeding, Genetics and Biochemistry,
has begun a 3-year posting at the Chinese
Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS).
Dr. Li continues to contribute to IRRI
research in gene discovery, allele mining
and germplasm improvement while under
appointment at CAAS as chief scientist of
the National Key Project on Crop Genetic
Resources and Genetic Improvement.
Robert S. Zeigler, former IRRI
plant pathologist (1992-98), has been
named director of the challenge program
Unlocking Genetic Diversity in Crops for
the Resource-Poor. Dr. Zeigler has more
than 20 years’ experience in international
agricultural research and management. He
will be based at the International Maize and
Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico.
Keijiro Otsuka, incoming chair of
IRRI’s Board of Trustees, was elected on
22 August the International Association
of Agricultural Economists vice president
for programs. Prabhu Pingali, former
IRRI economist (1987-96) and current
director of the Division of Agricultural and
Development Economics at the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the UN, was
Rice Today January 2004
elected president of the 3,000-member
professional organization.
David Johnson, principal scientist
since 1999 at the Natural Resources Insti-
tute of the University of Greenwich, U.K.,
and earlier seconded for 7 years to the West
Africa Rice Development Association (WAR-
DA) – The Africa Rice Center, joined IRRI in
September as a weed scientist in Crop, Soil
and Water Sciences (CSWS). He succeeds
Andrew Martin Mortimer, who served
as weed ecologist at IRRI from 1996.
Christian Witt, affiliate scientist
since 1998 and coordinator of the soil nu-
trition project Reaching Toward Optimum
Productivity in CSWS, and a PhD researcher
at IRRI in 1993-96, returned to Germany in
December.
Adam Barclay, IRRI’s first Australian
youth ambassador, arrived in September for a
year’s assignment in Visitors and Information
Services and as deputy editor of Rice Today.
Monina Escalada, a long-time IRRI
collaborator, became an international re-
search fellow in IRRI’s International Pro-
grams Management Office in October 2002,
a change this page failed to note until now.
Gone ahead
Peter Cox, agricultural economist with the
Cambodia-IRRI-Australia Project (CIAP),
1998-2001, succumbed to cancer in Bris-
bane on 20 October. From 2001, Dr. Cox
was the technical advisor to the director of
the Catholic Relief Service. Prior to his stint
at IRRI, he lived and worked in Zambia,
Bangladesh, Tanzania, Papua New Guinea,
India and his native Australia.
Jose “Joe” Burgos, intrepid ad-
vocate of press freedom and founder of
alternative Philippine newspapers, died on
16 November. He was 62. Mr. Burgos, who
served as media consultant for the annual
general meeting of the CGIAR in Manila in
October 2002, initiated in 1998 the organi-
zation of the Philippine branch of the Asia
Rice Media Advocacy Network.
Dennis Melvin Wood, former crop
protection specialist at IRRI (1983-85),
died on 25 October in a hunting accident
in Utah. He was 61. Following a 2-year
mission in India with the Peace Corps, Dr.
Wood embarked on a career in international
agricultural development, living and work-
ing in the Philippines, Vietnam, Morocco,
Indonesia, Holland and Tanzania.
Zosimo Q. Pizarro, former IRRI
associate director of human resources
(1984-91), passed away on 8 November. Mr.
Pizarro also served IRRI as administrative
assistant (1962-69), associate executive of-
ficer (1970-74) and senior administrative
associate (1975-83).
DONORS CORNER
Cooperating for peace
by H.-Jochen de Haas
F
ormer German Chancellor
Willy Brandt once described
development aid as “the
peace policy of the 21st century.”
Cooperation for development, to
use the modern phrase, remains
an important priority of the Ger-
man government and the Federal
Ministry for Economic Cooperation
and Development (Bundesminis-
terium für wirtschaftliche Zusam-
menarbeit und Entwicklung, or
BMZ), which is responsible for the
German government’s develop-
ment policy.
BMZ’s mission relates mainly
to the following areas:
• helping to fashion the global
framework for development,
• formulating bilateral and multi-
lateral support strategies,
OLIVER HANSCHKE
• supporting partner countries’
development programs and
projects and the development
cooperation programs of NGOs,
H.-JOCHEN DE HAAS is the head of the Rural Development and Global
and
Food Security Division of BMZ.
• aiding in monitoring and evalu-
ating the use of funds.
BMZ does not implement indi-
vidual development cooperation projects
and programs itself. This is the task of
independent organizations working on its
behalf. The largest two of those organiza-
tions are the Kreditanstalt für Wieder-
aufbau, which provides concessional loans core funding. The rest is targeted, or
to developing countries, and the Deutsche
Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenar-
beit (GTZ) GmbH, which supports techni-
cal cooperation.
BMZ recognizes the need for urgent
action to help the 800 million people
who face hunger every day. Central to
improving the livelihoods of millions
of rural people in developing countries,
fighting hunger and alleviating poverty on
an environmentally sustainable basis is
BMZ’s support for the research centers of
the Consultative Group on International
Agricultural Research (CGIAR). BMZ, a
member of the CGIAR from the group’s
beginning and a committed supporter
of its research agenda, ranks among its
top 10 investors, contributing financial,
scientific, human and technical resources.
Since 1971, German financial support for
the research work carried out at the cen-
ters has surpassed US$300 million.
Today, a quarter of Germany’s finan-
cial support for the CGIAR is unrestricted
project, funding that is awarded based on
guidelines set by both the CGIAR and BMZ. ment, served as IRRI’s director general
BMZ has commissioned a GTZ proj-
ect, the Advisory Service on Agricultural
Research for Development (Beratungs-
gruppe Entwicklungsorientierte Agrar-
forschung, or BEAF), to administer Ger-
many’s targeted funding of international
agricultural research. BEAF has offices in
Bonn and at the GTZ head office in Esch-
born. As part of its mandate, BEAF advises increasingly important question of how
BMZ on all issues related to international
agricultural research for development. Its
objectives are to organize and administer
German support to the CGIAR and some
other international agricultural research
centers, establish and improve contacts
between research centers and development them.
Rice Today January 2004
projects, link these centers with the
active German research commu-
nity, and raise public awareness for
international agricultural research
for development.
BEAF is supported by an advi-
sory committee of members from
public research organizations,
the private sector and NGOs. The
multidisciplinary group provides
advice on German strategies in
international agricultural research
and gives recommendations on
project funding. BEAF cooperates
closely with development organi-
zations such as Capacity Building
International (Internationale
Weiterbildung und Entwicklung
gGmbH, or InWEnt) and scientific
associations such as the Council
for Tropical and Subtropical Agri-
cultural Research (Arbeitsgemein-
schaft für Tropische und Subtrop-
ische Agrarforschung, or ATSAF).
BEAF also hosts the co-secretariat
of the national German Forum
on Research for Development
(Deutsches Forum für Entwick-
lungsorientierte Forschung, or DFOR).
Rice is life for 2.5 billion people
around the world, and Germany is pleased
to have found a valuable partner in IRRI.
Since 1974, German support for IRRI’s
research has totaled approximately
US$30 million. Klaus Lampe, a renowned
German specialist in agricultural develop-
in 1988-95, and German researchers
continue to be active at the institute. Ger-
many supports a broad range of research
areas, from the development of new rice
varieties suitable for various rice ecosys-
tems to genome and biodiversity studies,
improved management of soil and water,
integrated pest management, and the
rice supplies can be assured in the context
of global warming.
These challenges are likely to grow
in the future. The German government,
BMZ and its implementing partners are
committed to working with IRRI to meet
33
 NEW BOOKS
I
RRI has added four new titles to its
inventory of more than 100 books
currently available on rice research.
Check the IRRI online publica-
tions catalog at www.irri.org/pubcat/
pubcontents.htm for pricing and order-
ing information on these and other titles
and for announcements about other new
books as they become available.
Breeding Rice for Drought-Prone En-
vironments (by K.S. Fischer et al; fully
funded by the Rockefeller Foundation;
98 pages) is a manual that aims to help
plant breeders develop rice varieties for
drought-prone environments. Many of the
world’s poorest farmers work in rainfed
areas where water supplies are unpredict-
able and droughts are common. In Asia,
about half of all the rice land is rainfed.
While rice yields in irrigated systems
have doubled and tripled over the past 30
years, only modest gains have occurred
in rainfed rice because of the complexity
of improving rice varieties for changeable
environments and the small investment
made so far in breeding rice for drought
tolerance.
Drought tolerance must be integrated
with mainstream breeding programs
addressing agronomic adaptation, grain
quality, and pest and disease resistance.
This manual, prepared in collaboration
with the University of Queensland, ampli-
fies and updates the section on drought
tolerance in the IRRI book Rainfed
Lowland Rice Improvement (Mackill et
al 1996).
34
Increasing
Productivity
of Intensive
Rice Systems
through Site-
Specific
Nutrient
Management
(edited by
A. Dober-
mann et al;
co-published
with Science
Publishers,
Inc.; 410
pages) summarizes research in 1994-2001
to develop a new concept for site-specific
nutrient management (SSNM) in irrigated
rice systems and the tools needed for
applying it in farmers’ fields. Yield gains
have slowed in recent years, particularly
among early adopters of Green Revolution
technologies. Although scientists are de-
veloping new germplasm to raise existing
yield ceilings, future yield increases are
likely to be smaller than in the past and
will require more knowledge-intensive
forms of soil and crop management that
improve input efficiency and, at the same
time, protect the environment. The inte-
grated and efficient use of nutrients is one
of the key issues for sustainable resource
management in intensive rice systems.
After reviewing the economics of rice
production and productivity trends in
Asia, most of the book presents the prin-
ciples of SSNM and the results of the first
phase of field-testing at numerous sites in
Asia. This book demonstrates how long-
term commitment to interdisciplinary
on-farm research forges promising generic
solutions for resource management. As
new tools such as a nutrient decision sup-
port system and a Practical Guide for Nu-
trient Management (Fairhurst and Witt
2002) have been developed, the theoreti-
cal develop-
ment of new
nutrient
management
concepts
continues.
Hybrid Rice
for Food
Security,
Poverty Al-
leviation
and Envi-
ronmental
Protection
Rice Today January 2004
(edited by S.S. Virmani et al; 401 pages)
offers papers covering progress made
since 1996 in hybrid rice breeding meth-
odologies, biotechnological applications,
seed production, agronomic management
and technology dissemination. Hybrid rice
technology was successfully developed in
China during 1964-75, where it is grown
on half of the country’s 30 million ha of
rice area. It is now under development in
some 20 other countries, with 800,000 ha
currently under rice hybrids in Vietnam,
India, Philippines, Bangladesh, Indone-
sia, Myanmar and the United States. This
technology enables farmers to produce
more rice per hectare and hour of labor,
and so contributes to improved grain
yields and farmers’ income, while creating
rural employment in hybrid seed produc-
tion. Having contributed significantly
toward improved food security and envi-
ronmental protection in China, hybrid rice
also has good prospects in other countries.
The papers in this book were present-
ed at the 4th International Symposium on
Hybrid Rice held in Hanoi, Vietnam, 14-17
May 2002, which was attended by 187
participants from 19 countries and three
international agencies (IRRI, the Food
and Agriculture Organization, and the
Asia-Pacific Seed Association).
Two-Line
Hybrid Rice
Breeding
Manual (by
S.S Virmani
et al; with
support
from the
Asian De-
velopment
Bank; 88
pages) de-
scribes con-
cepts and
procedures
in a stepwise
manner for
easy learning of the technique. Breed-
ing hybrid rice requires several concepts,
skills and procedures that are strikingly
different from those used in breeding
inbred rice. The availability of adequately
trained technicians is an essential
prerequisite for developing and using
this technology. Experienced hybrid rice
scientists from China and IRRI prepared
this manual, which expands upon IRRI’s
earlier Hybrid Rice Breeding Manual
(Virmani 1997).
Rice publishing? Don’t make me pilaf!
The original backpacker explores the world of rice
that thrives between crop science and cookbooks
L
onely Planet Publications, the
Australian guidebook company that
found success in serving up Asia
— and then the world — to budget
travelers, will soon publish a glossy coffee-
table book entitled Rice Trails.
“This is not in any sense a recipe
book,” stresses author Tony Wheeler, who,
with photographer Richard l’Anson, jour-
neyed to 13 countries, 12 of them in Asia,
to document the story of rice from field to
table. “Nor is it academic. We wanted to
tell the human story of rice and show how
it differed from country to country and yet
in many ways stayed the same.”
“I can pinpoint exactly where and
when I first fell in love with rice,” be-
gins the author’s introduction to Rice
Trails. “It was in East Java in ’74. I was
in my mid-20s, recently married, and my
wife, Maureen, and I had been traveling
through Indonesia for several months.
I’d certainly seen (and eaten!) lots of rice
by that time. I was familiar with beauti-
ful rice terraces in Nepal and many other
Asian countries, but in the country around
Yogyakarta everything came together.”
The Wheelers had earlier traveled
overland from London to Australia, a
journey that produced, in 1973, the first
Lonely Planet publication, the seminal
shoestring travelers’ guide Across Asia
on the Cheap. When everything came
together around Yogyakarta, the couple
were researching their second guide,
Southeast Asia on a Shoestring, one of the TONY WHEELER gets his feet wet in Bali, as Richard
most popular guidebooks ever published. l'Anson (below) relaxes on a rice barge in Dhaka.
Today, Lonely Planet employs about 150
authors around the globe and more than cally and visually. The book even covers
400 office staffers in Melbourne, Oakland, rice tourism, those places where hotels or
London and Paris. restaurants have been strategically sited to
Rice Trails may appear timed to cash take in views of rice paddies.”
in on International The book starts with the history of
Year of Rice 2004, rice and its contribution to the growth of
but Messrs. Wheel- civilization in Asia. Following a tour of the
er and l’Anson “ricescapes” of Bali, Bangladesh, Philip-
started their project pines, Nepal and Australia, four chap-
more than 2 years ters detail how rice is grown, harvested,
years before the processed and sold in countries at various
United Nations levels of development. A chapter on the
declared the year uses of rice takes in Japanese tatami mats
tag. The 160-page as well as the countless forms in which
book, which will rice products reach the table. Next comes
measure 24 × 30 a chapter on the place of rice in ritual and
cm and retail for religious belief. Finally, a chapter on rice
US$40, is expected research takes readers to IRRI and the
to be available in Central Soil Salinity Research Center in
March. Karnal, India.
“Richard and I “Better rice plants, improved tech-
have both trav- niques and superior equipment are all
eled extensively part of the story, but at the end of the day
in Asia,” says Mr. it’s the rice farmer who is the key to the
Wheeler. “So we whole puzzle,” writes Mr. Wheeler. “For-
were aware of the tunately, IRRI and other rice researchers
enormous influ- are uniform in their praise for farmers’
ence of rice, not adaptability and interest in adopting new
just as the world’s techniques and better plants. […] The
LONELY PLANET (2)
most important quick spread of IRRI’s new varieties is
food but also cul- a prime indicator of the close attention
turally, economi- farmers pay to their productivity.”
Rice Today January 2004 35
 NEW BOOKS
I
RRI has added four new titles to its
inventory of more than 100 books
currently available on rice research.
Check the IRRI online publica-
tions catalog at www.irri.org/pubcat/
pubcontents.htm for pricing and order-
ing information on these and other titles
and for announcements about other new
books as they become available.
Breeding Rice for Drought-Prone En-
vironments (by K.S. Fischer et al; fully
funded by the Rockefeller Foundation;
98 pages) is a manual that aims to help
plant breeders develop rice varieties for
drought-prone environments. Many of the
world’s poorest farmers work in rainfed
areas where water supplies are unpredict-
able and droughts are common. In Asia,
about half of all the rice land is rainfed.
While rice yields in irrigated systems
have doubled and tripled over the past 30
years, only modest gains have occurred
in rainfed rice because of the complexity
of improving rice varieties for changeable
environments and the small investment
made so far in breeding rice for drought
tolerance.
Drought tolerance must be integrated
with mainstream breeding programs
addressing agronomic adaptation, grain
quality, and pest and disease resistance.
This manual, prepared in collaboration
with the University of Queensland, ampli-
fies and updates the section on drought
tolerance in the IRRI book Rainfed
Lowland Rice Improvement (Mackill et
al 1996).
34
Increasing
Productivity
of Intensive
Rice Systems
through Site-
Specific
Nutrient
Management
(edited by
A. Dober-
mann et al;
co-published
with Science
Publishers,
Inc.; 410
pages) summarizes research in 1994-2001
to develop a new concept for site-specific
nutrient management (SSNM) in irrigated
rice systems and the tools needed for
applying it in farmers’ fields. Yield gains
have slowed in recent years, particularly
among early adopters of Green Revolution
technologies. Although scientists are de-
veloping new germplasm to raise existing
yield ceilings, future yield increases are
likely to be smaller than in the past and
will require more knowledge-intensive
forms of soil and crop management that
improve input efficiency and, at the same
time, protect the environment. The inte-
grated and efficient use of nutrients is one
of the key issues for sustainable resource
management in intensive rice systems.
After reviewing the economics of rice
production and productivity trends in
Asia, most of the book presents the prin-
ciples of SSNM and the results of the first
phase of field-testing at numerous sites in
Asia. This book demonstrates how long-
term commitment to interdisciplinary
on-farm research forges promising generic
solutions for resource management. As
new tools such as a nutrient decision sup-
port system and a Practical Guide for Nu-
trient Management (Fairhurst and Witt
2002) have been developed, the theoreti-
cal develop-
ment of new
nutrient
management
concepts
continues.
Hybrid Rice
for Food
Security,
Poverty Al-
leviation
and Envi-
ronmental
Protection
Rice Today January 2004
(edited by S.S. Virmani et al; 401 pages)
offers papers covering progress made
since 1996 in hybrid rice breeding meth-
odologies, biotechnological applications,
seed production, agronomic management
and technology dissemination. Hybrid rice
technology was successfully developed in
China during 1964-75, where it is grown
on half of the country’s 30 million ha of
rice area. It is now under development in
some 20 other countries, with 800,000 ha
currently under rice hybrids in Vietnam,
India, Philippines, Bangladesh, Indone-
sia, Myanmar and the United States. This
technology enables farmers to produce
more rice per hectare and hour of labor,
and so contributes to improved grain
yields and farmers’ income, while creating
rural employment in hybrid seed produc-
tion. Having contributed significantly
toward improved food security and envi-
ronmental protection in China, hybrid rice
also has good prospects in other countries.
The papers in this book were present-
ed at the 4th International Symposium on
Hybrid Rice held in Hanoi, Vietnam, 14-17
May 2002, which was attended by 187
participants from 19 countries and three
international agencies (IRRI, the Food
and Agriculture Organization, and the
Asia-Pacific Seed Association).
Two-Line
Hybrid Rice
Breeding
Manual (by
S.S Virmani
et al; with
support
from the
Asian De-
velopment
Bank; 88
pages) de-
scribes con-
cepts and
procedures
in a stepwise
manner for
easy learning of the technique. Breed-
ing hybrid rice requires several concepts,
skills and procedures that are strikingly
different from those used in breeding
inbred rice. The availability of adequately
trained technicians is an essential
prerequisite for developing and using
this technology. Experienced hybrid rice
scientists from China and IRRI prepared
this manual, which expands upon IRRI’s
earlier Hybrid Rice Breeding Manual
(Virmani 1997).
Rice publishing? Don’t make me pilaf!
The original backpacker explores the world of rice
that thrives between crop science and cookbooks
L
onely Planet Publications, the
Australian guidebook company that
found success in serving up Asia
— and then the world — to budget
travelers, will soon publish a glossy coffee-
table book entitled Rice Trails.
“This is not in any sense a recipe
book,” stresses author Tony Wheeler, who,
with photographer Richard l’Anson, jour-
neyed to 13 countries, 12 of them in Asia,
to document the story of rice from field to
table. “Nor is it academic. We wanted to
tell the human story of rice and show how
it differed from country to country and yet
in many ways stayed the same.”
“I can pinpoint exactly where and
when I first fell in love with rice,” be-
gins the author’s introduction to Rice
Trails. “It was in East Java in ’74. I was
in my mid-20s, recently married, and my
wife, Maureen, and I had been traveling
through Indonesia for several months.
I’d certainly seen (and eaten!) lots of rice
by that time. I was familiar with beauti-
ful rice terraces in Nepal and many other
Asian countries, but in the country around
Yogyakarta everything came together.”
The Wheelers had earlier traveled
overland from London to Australia, a
journey that produced, in 1973, the first
Lonely Planet publication, the seminal
shoestring travelers’ guide Across Asia
on the Cheap. When everything came
together around Yogyakarta, the couple
were researching their second guide,
Southeast Asia on a Shoestring, one of the TONY WHEELER gets his feet wet in Bali, as Richard
most popular guidebooks ever published. l'Anson (below) relaxes on a rice barge in Dhaka.
Today, Lonely Planet employs about 150
authors around the globe and more than cally and visually. The book even covers
400 office staffers in Melbourne, Oakland, rice tourism, those places where hotels or
London and Paris. restaurants have been strategically sited to
Rice Trails may appear timed to cash take in views of rice paddies.”
in on International The book starts with the history of
Year of Rice 2004, rice and its contribution to the growth of
but Messrs. Wheel- civilization in Asia. Following a tour of the
er and l’Anson “ricescapes” of Bali, Bangladesh, Philip-
started their project pines, Nepal and Australia, four chap-
more than 2 years ters detail how rice is grown, harvested,
years before the processed and sold in countries at various
United Nations levels of development. A chapter on the
declared the year uses of rice takes in Japanese tatami mats
tag. The 160-page as well as the countless forms in which
book, which will rice products reach the table. Next comes
measure 24 × 30 a chapter on the place of rice in ritual and
cm and retail for religious belief. Finally, a chapter on rice
US$40, is expected research takes readers to IRRI and the
to be available in Central Soil Salinity Research Center in
March. Karnal, India.
“Richard and I “Better rice plants, improved tech-
have both trav- niques and superior equipment are all
eled extensively part of the story, but at the end of the day
in Asia,” says Mr. it’s the rice farmer who is the key to the
Wheeler. “So we whole puzzle,” writes Mr. Wheeler. “For-
were aware of the tunately, IRRI and other rice researchers
enormous influ- are uniform in their praise for farmers’
ence of rice, not adaptability and interest in adopting new
just as the world’s techniques and better plants. […] The
LONELY PLANET (2)
most important quick spread of IRRI’s new varieties is
food but also cul- a prime indicator of the close attention
turally, economi- farmers pay to their productivity.”
Rice Today January 2004 35
 RICE FACTS
A fresh look at the world rice market for Asians who still equate food security with self-sufficiency

TRADING UP by D D

Economist

T
he world food crisis of
1973-75 continues to shape
the attitude of Asian policy-
makers toward food secu-
rity. Occurring as it did in a period of
volatility in the world rice market, the
crisis has encouraged policymakers
ever since to pursue self-sufficiency
in rice at all costs. Analysis of the
changing structure of the post-World
War II market, and in particular of
sturdy trends over the past 2 decades,
suggests that Asian rice importers
can now afford to rely on the world
market for assured access to adequate
supplies of affordable rice more than
was warranted in the past.
Throughout the second half of
the 20th century, Asian rice harvests
rose steadily in per capita terms and
became more stable. Prices and their
variability nevertheless exhibited
three distinct phases. Rice prices were
high and relatively stable in 1950-
64, still high but substantially more
variable in 1965-81, and low and very
stable in 1985-96 (Table 1).
Table 1. Characteristics of the world rice economy for selected periods.
1950-64
Pre-Green
Revolution
Production structure
Level (per capita)
Variability
Trade structure
Number of commercially
oriented exporters
Prices
Level
Variability
Average yield, world (tons/ha)
Modern variety adoption
(irrigated area)
as percentage of planted
area, end of period
Bangladesh
India
Indonesia
Myanmar
Philippines
Thailand
Vietnam
Sources: production structure, trade structure, prices discussed in text; yield from FAOStat
on-line electronic database (2002); modern variety adoption, irrigated area from IRRI World prices reflect the
Rice Statistics electronic database (2001).
(–) data not available. * 1991
36
Trends in the level and stability ing the 1950s, Myanmar and Thailand
of Asian rice production go a long dominated world rice exports, with
way toward explaining recent trends Cambodia also being an important
in world rice prices. Most strikingly, player (Table 2). More important,
the plunge in world prices in 1982-84 exports were a large share of domestic
coincided exactly with a sharp in- production for these countries (Figure
crease in per capita rice production in 2), encouraging them to be com-
Asia (Figure 1). Since this production mercially oriented, reliable suppliers.
surge, the magnitude of year-to-year Thus, whenever a shortfall in Asian
fluctuations in per capita produc- rice production occurred, one or
tion has been markedly lower than more would typically step in to fill the
previously, with fluctuations greater breach and prevent world prices from
than 3% occurring only 4 times in the spiraling out of control.
past 2 decades, compared to 22 times
in the 29 years from 1952 to 1980. Constrained exports
The average absolute value of annual The situation had changed consider-
changes in per capita production was ably by the mid-1960s, when a major
4.4% in 1952-64, 3.7% in 1965-81, and El Niño event led to a sharp fall of 6%
just 1.8% in 1985-96. This improve- in per capita Asian rice production in
ment in stability is due mainly to the 1965 (see Rice Today, Vol. 2, No. 2,
spread of irrigation and improved pages 10-19). By this time, Myanmar
pest and disease control achieved in was well into a period of sharp decline
part by the development of resistant due to restrictive government policies,
modern rice varieties. and the proportion of Cambodia’s
But why were world rice prices production that found its way onto
relatively stable in the earlier 1950-64 the world market was falling. South
period despite very unstable produc- Vietnam banned exports in 1965 and
tion? For most of even Thailand was becoming less
the 20th century, commercially oriented and more will-
1965-81 1985-96 the major rice ing to constrain exports to stabilize
Early Green Late Green exporters were domestic prices.
Revolution Revolution
in mainland By the 1970s, the world market
Low Medium High Southeast Asia: was even more unsettled, as pro-
High Medium Low
Thailand, Myan- duction shortfalls caused by severe
Many Few Many mar, Cambodia El Niño and La Niña events were
and Vietnam. exacerbated by the inaction of the
High High Low
Low High Low (The United traditional commercial rice exporters
1.88 2.42 3.50 States is also a — the situation that snowballed into
major exporter, the world food crisis of 1973-75.
but its shipments The subsequent reemergence of
0 (5) 22 (13) 54 (30) of japonica rice Thailand and Vietnam as commer-
0 (37) 48 (42) 77 (51) within the Ameri- cially oriented rice exporters was a
0 (–) 61 (64) 81 (72*)
0 (14) 53 (18) 61 (27) cas are periph- major factor in buffering the world
0 (30) 79 (48) 87 (63) eral to the world market in 1998 in the face of a major
0 (26) 13 (23) 18 (20)
0 (–) 17 (41) 83 (51) market, whose El Niño event. Other key exporters
complement Thailand and Vietnam
Asian trade in — notably Pakistan, China and India
indica rice.) Dur- — and their willingness to supply the
Rice Today January 2004
 RICE FACTS
A fresh look at the world rice market for Asians who still equate food security with self-sufficiency world market lends added stability in
times of crisis.

TRADING UP by D D

e future?
What does the future hold for the
world rice market? Prices declined
substantially in the last half of the
Economist 1990s. The magnitude of this drop
recalls the steep decline that occurred

T
in the early to mid-1980s, and the
he world food crisis of Trends in the level and stability ing the 1950s, Myanmar and Thailand reasons behind it are similar: broadly
1973-75 continues to shape of Asian rice production go a long dominated world rice exports, with higher production, curtailed Indone-
the attitude of Asian policy- way toward explaining recent trends Cambodia also being an important sian imports and a weak Thai baht.
makers toward food secu- in world rice prices. Most strikingly, player (Table 2). More important, Statistical analysis of these factors Fig. 1. Inflation-adjusted world market rice prices and per capita Asian rice production, 1951-2001. Note:
rity. Occurring as it did in a period of the plunge in world prices in 1982-84 exports were a large share of domestic and other key trends suggests that Asia includes Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, North and South Korea, Laos, Malaysia,
volatility in the world rice market, the coincided exactly with a sharp in- production for these countries (Figure prices will remain near their current Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.
crisis has encouraged policymakers crease in per capita rice production in 2), encouraging them to be com- low levels for the medium term. The
ever since to pursue self-sufficiency Asia (Figure 1). Since this production mercially oriented, reliable suppliers. one possible countervailing factor
in rice at all costs. Analysis of the surge, the magnitude of year-to-year Thus, whenever a shortfall in Asian is the long-term slowdown in yield
changing structure of the post-World fluctuations in per capita produc- rice production occurred, one or growth that has occurred throughout
War II market, and in particular of tion has been markedly lower than more would typically step in to fill the Asia. If yield growth continues to
sturdy trends over the past 2 decades, previously, with fluctuations greater breach and prevent world prices from decelerate, and does so more quickly
suggests that Asian rice importers than 3% occurring only 4 times in the spiraling out of control. than population growth, per capita
can now afford to rely on the world past 2 decades, compared to 22 times production will begin to decline,
market for assured access to adequate in the 29 years from 1952 to 1980. Constrained exports and this may cause rice prices to rise
supplies of affordable rice more than The average absolute value of annual The situation had changed consider- again.
was warranted in the past. changes in per capita production was ably by the mid-1960s, when a major That said, world prices will likely
Throughout the second half of 4.4% in 1952-64, 3.7% in 1965-81, and El Niño event led to a sharp fall of 6% remain generally stable in the near
the 20th century, Asian rice harvests just 1.8% in 1985-96. This improve- in per capita Asian rice production in future, just as they have during the
rose steadily in per capita terms and ment in stability is due mainly to the 1965 (see Rice Today, Vol. 2, No. 2, past 15 years, due to the prevalence
became more stable. Prices and their spread of irrigation and improved pages 10-19). By this time, Myanmar of irrigation in rice production, the Fig. 2. Ratio of exports to domestic production, 1950-2000: Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam.
variability nevertheless exhibited pest and disease control achieved in was well into a period of sharp decline
three distinct phases. Rice prices were part by the development of resistant due to restrictive government policies, Table 2. Leading rice-exporting and -importing countries for selected periods, improved pest The effects of even small price fluctua-
with average annual level of exports/imports during each period (in millions
high and relatively stable in 1950- modern rice varieties. and the proportion of Cambodia’s of tons of milled rice). and disease resis- tions on the welfare of producers and
64, still high but substantially more But why were world rice prices production that found its way onto Exports tance of modern consumers, especially the poor, can
Country 1950-64 Country 1965-81 Country 1985-96
variable in 1965-81, and low and very relatively stable in the earlier 1950-64 the world market was falling. South varieties and — a have political repercussions. And,
Myanmar 1.52 USA 2.03 Thailand 4.97
stable in 1985-96 (Table 1). period despite very unstable produc- Vietnam banned exports in 1965 and Thailand 1.38 Thailand 1.75 USA 2.52 factor that has even in a quiet world rice market,
USA 0.80 China 1.62 Vietnam 1.26
tion? For most of even Thailand was becoming less China 0.69 Myanmar 0.59 Pakistan 1.19 received little financial-market liberalization may
the 20th century, commercially oriented and more will- Cambodia 0.47 Pakistan 0.58 India 1.05 fanfare — the heighten exchange rate fluctuations
Table 1. Characteristics of the world rice economy for selected periods. Egypt 0.22 Italy 0.34 China 0.88
1950-64 1965-81 1985-96 the major rice ing to constrain exports to stabilize Italy 0.19 Egypt 0.32 Italy 0.61 renewed com- that, under free trade, translate into
Vietnam 0.16 Japan 0.30 Australia 0.45
Pre-Green Early Green Late Green exporters were domestic prices. Pakistan 0.12 Australia 0.18 Uruguay 0.35 mercial orienta- changes in domestic rice prices as
Revolution Revolution Revolution Brazil 0.06 N. Korea 0.17 Myanmar 0.33
Production structure in mainland By the 1970s, the world market World 6.05 World 9.23 World 15.36 tion of major rice readily as do changes in world rice
Level (per capita) Low Medium High Southeast Asia: was even more unsettled, as pro- % of world total: exporters. None prices. Asian governments need to
Variability High Medium Low Top 5 80% 71% 72%
Trade structure Thailand, Myan- duction shortfalls caused by severe Top 10 93% 85% 89% of these trends is formulate cost-effective policies to
Number of commercially Many Few Many mar, Cambodia El Niño and La Niña events were likely to reverse, deal with these issues.
oriented exporters Imports
Prices and Vietnam. exacerbated by the inaction of the Country 1950-64 Country 1965-81 Country 1985-96 and Myanmar Nevertheless, the combination of
Level High High Low
Variability Low High Low (The United traditional commercial rice exporters Indonesia 0.70 Indonesia 1.02 Iran 0.79 and Cambodia low and stable prices on the interna-
Japan 0.66 Vietnam 0.62 Brazil 0.62
Average yield, world (tons/ha) 1.88 2.42 3.50 States is also a — the situation that snowballed into India 0.58 South Korea 0.51 Indonesia 0.60 may rejoin the tional market will likely continue for
Modern variety adoption Malaysia &
(irrigated area) major exporter, the world food crisis of 1973-75. Singapore 0.53 India 0.42 China 0.50
ranks of stabiliz- the medium term, resulting in less risk
as percentage of planted but its shipments The subsequent reemergence of Sri Lanka 0.47 USSR 0.40 USSR/CIS 0.46 ing exporters for rice-importing countries that de-
area, end of period Hong Kong 0.31 Hong Kong 0.36 Iraq 0.43
Bangladesh 0 (5) 22 (13) 54 (30) of japonica rice Thailand and Vietnam as commer- E. Pakistan 0.25 Sri Lanka 0.35 Saudi Arabia 0.42 within the next cide to rely on the world market more
India 0 (37) 48 (42) 77 (51) Cuba 0.20 Bangldesh 0.31 Senegal 0.39
within the Ameri- cially oriented rice exporters was a W. Germany 0.13 Malaysia 0.29 Hong Kong 0.38 decade. heavily than they have in the past.
Indonesia 0 (–) 61 (64) 81 (72*)
Myanmar 0 (14) 53 (18) 61 (27) cas are periph- major factor in buffering the world Philippines
World
0.11
6.10
Singapore
World
0.24
9.30
Malaysia
World
0.36
15.11
Reduced
Philippines 0 (30) 79 (48) 87 (63) eral to the world market in 1998 in the face of a major price variability
Thailand 0 (26) 13 (23) 18 (20) % of world total:
Vietnam 0 (–) 17 (41) 83 (51) market, whose El Niño event. Other key exporters Top 5 48% 32% 20% does not guaran- Adapted from Dawe D. 2002. The
Sources: production structure, trade structure, prices discussed in text; yield from FAOStat Top 10 65% 49% 33%
on-line electronic database (2002); modern variety adoption, irrigated area from IRRI World prices reflect the complement Thailand and Vietnam tee that the ef- changing structure of the world rice
Sources of raw data: Palacpac (1977) for 1950-60, FAOStat on-line electronic database (2002)
Rice Statistics electronic database (2001). Asian trade in — notably Pakistan, China and India for 1961-96. World exports and imports are not equal in any particular year in original data fects of instability market, 1950-2000. Food Policy,
(–) data not available. * 1991
indica rice.) Dur- — and their willingness to supply the sources. USSR is not included in 1950-64 imports because of data availability constraints. are negligible. 27(4):355-370.
36 Rice Today January 2004 Rice Today January 2004 37
 DON COLE, COURTESY UCLA FOWLER MUSEUM OF CULTURAL HISTORY (7)
grain of truth

Let’s promote brown rice

to combat hidden hunger
EMIL Q. JAVIER
Chair, Asia Rice Foundation

A
gricultural advances in the past 3 decades have made Besides the nutritional benefits of consuming brown

Art of Rice
remarkable progress in providing affordable cereals rice, there are two economic ones. First, foregoing polishing
to most of the poor in the developing world. As a and whitening reduces the power demands of milling by as
result — and despite the continuing much as 65%. Second, with the bran
plight of 800 million desperately and the nutrient-rich embryo intact,
poor — we hear less these days and with fewer broken grains, whole-
about famine and severe calorie and
Whole rice offers grain milling recovery is as much as
protein deficiency in sub-Saharan 10% higher than for white rice. So, if
Africa and South Asia, the two most significant levels of protein all the rice grown in the Philippines,
vulnerable regions. for example, were consumed as
Now we must overcome the brown rice, there would be no need
"hidden hunger" of the poor for
and essential vitamins for rice imports, which in 2002 cost
essential vitamins and minerals. US$200 million.
As cereals constitute the bulk of and minerals, Here’s the rub. Promoting OBJECTS FROM THE ART OF RICE: Thai rice goddess, Mae Phosop (top left), in a commercial print with incense and rice cakes offered
the diet of those who can’t afford brown rice is a formidable challenge for her pregnancy ritual, which is conducted when grains begin to swell in the rice fields (1980, Fowler collection). (Continuing clockwise)
micronutrient-rich foods such as because most Asian rice consumers Korean painting of three elderly farmers in Eunhang Dong, by Jonggu Lee using acrylic on a paper rice sack, recalls time gone by (1991,
meat, milk, fruits and vegetables,
but polishing removes have acquired a taste for polished collection of the artist); Japanese snow boots made from rice straw (Fowler collection); Indian tableau constructed of dried clay, mud,
any increase in the vitamin and white rice. Before the advent of straw, wood, paint, cloth, metals, plastic, enamel and string, on commission by Gourishankar Bandophadaya in West Bengal, shows the
mineral content of staple grains most of these nutrients machine mills, people dehulled rice blue-skinned deity Annapurna giving rice to yellow-skinned Shiva, who sits on a throne between porcelain-skinned Bhringi and dark-gray
helps combat this insidious form of manually by mortar and pestle. For Nandi (2003, Fowler collection); Balinese figures of metal, wood, silk, plant fiber and glass, known collectively as Rambut Sedana, serve
malnutrition. High-quality protein most, brown rice was the only rice. as receptacles for the rice goddess Bhatari Sri Dewi and her consort, Bethara Sedana, when a priest invokes the deities to take up temporary
maize, developed by the International Maize and Wheat Today, Asians associate white rice with modernization and residence at the beginning of Balinese rituals (Mershon collection of Indonesian art); Javanese shadow puppet made of hide, horn, paint,
Improvement Center in Mexico, is now being popularized affluence, and brown rice with backwardness and poverty.
thread and plastic, constructed on commission by Daniel Mulyana in East Java, Indonesia, represents the rice goddess Dewi Sri (2002,
in many developing countries. Rice cultivars high in beta If brown rice were marketed in Asia as a fashionable
Fowler collection); Ifugao carved-wood granary figures, or bulul, from the northern Philippines, normally consist of a male and female
carotene (provitamin A), iron and zinc are in the pipeline at health food, as in Europe and North America, people would
pair, but this set includes an infant to make the connection between the rice crop and human fertility (Thomas Murray collection).
IRRI and some of its national partners in Asia. become accustomed once more to its grittier texture and
There is, however, another strategy that has not received nutty flavor. At the household level, people would learn
the attention it deserves: encouraging the consumption of that cooking brown rice requires a little more water and The Art of Rice: Spirit and Sustenance in Asia, an exhibition in the Fowler Museum of Cultural History, University
whole grains. cooking time (or else 30 minutes of soaking). Rice millers of California at Los Angeles, Sunset and Westwood Boulevards, Westwood. Open Wednesday-Sunday,
12-5 pm (Thursday until 8 pm). No admission charge; parking $7. For information, call (+1-310) 825-
Whole rice and wheat offer significant levels of protein would adjust their machines to produce brown rice — an easy
4361. Closes on 25 April and reopens at Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts,
and essential vitamins and minerals, but most of these procedure if demand makes the extra effort worthwhile. Napa, California, in September-November, and at Honolulu Academy of Arts, February-April 2005.
nutrients are removed in the polishing stage of the milling A significant drawback is shorter shelf life because the Major funding from National Endowment for the Humanities, Rockefeller Foundation, Getty Grant
process. In rice, polishing removes 15% of the protein, 85% lipid-rich layer left on the whole grain is susceptible to microbial Program, Henry Luce Foundation, and University of California Pacific Rim Research Program.
of the fat, 90% of the calcium, 75% of the phosphorus, and insect damage. The hulling process — particularly using
80% of the thiamine, 70% of the riboflavin and 68% of the metal rollers — breaks up the bran cells, releasing their lipase
niacin. Additionally, whole-grain rice — popularly called enzyme, which breaks down the oil in the bran, producing free
brown rice — is rich in dietary fiber, which protects against fatty acids that cause rancidity and spoilage.
hypercholesterolemia, diabetes and colorectal cancer. And, The obvious solution is just-in-time hulling, but this
of course, bran functions as a gentle laxative. isn’t always practical. Experiments in the Philippines have
Brown rice also has high levels of phytic acid, which shown, however, that brown rice dehulled with rubber rollers,
diminishes the availability of essential minerals such as which are now commonplace, can be kept for 90-150 days at
iron, phosphorus and calcium but protects people prone to room temperature (23 to 34°C) without vacuum packing, if
kidney stones by reducing urinary calcium. (A mutant rice the grain is dried to 14% moisture content. Brown rice with
line low in phytic acid has been identified, and the character a higher moisture content can be packed in custom-sized
has been bred into a popular rice variety in the United States, polyethylene bags (2-5 kg) and then sealed, which is good for
halving its phytic acid content.) 2 to 3 weeks’ storage — or longer in a refrigerator.
38 Rice Today January 2004
 DON COLE, COURTESY UCLA FOWLER MUSEUM OF CULTURAL HISTORY (7)
grain of truth

Let’s promote brown rice

to combat hidden hunger
EMIL Q. JAVIER
Chair, Asia Rice Foundation

A
gricultural advances in the past 3 decades have made Besides the nutritional benefits of consuming brown

Art of Rice
remarkable progress in providing affordable cereals rice, there are two economic ones. First, foregoing polishing
to most of the poor in the developing world. As a and whitening reduces the power demands of milling by as
result — and despite the continuing much as 65%. Second, with the bran
plight of 800 million desperately and the nutrient-rich embryo intact,
poor — we hear less these days and with fewer broken grains, whole-
about famine and severe calorie and
Whole rice offers grain milling recovery is as much as
protein deficiency in sub-Saharan 10% higher than for white rice. So, if
Africa and South Asia, the two most significant levels of protein all the rice grown in the Philippines,
vulnerable regions. for example, were consumed as
Now we must overcome the brown rice, there would be no need
"hidden hunger" of the poor for
and essential vitamins for rice imports, which in 2002 cost
essential vitamins and minerals. US$200 million.
As cereals constitute the bulk of and minerals, Here’s the rub. Promoting OBJECTS FROM THE ART OF RICE: Thai rice goddess, Mae Phosop (top left), in a commercial print with incense and rice cakes offered
the diet of those who can’t afford brown rice is a formidable challenge for her pregnancy ritual, which is conducted when grains begin to swell in the rice fields (1980, Fowler collection). (Continuing clockwise)
micronutrient-rich foods such as because most Asian rice consumers Korean painting of three elderly farmers in Eunhang Dong, by Jonggu Lee using acrylic on a paper rice sack, recalls time gone by (1991,
meat, milk, fruits and vegetables,
but polishing removes have acquired a taste for polished collection of the artist); Japanese snow boots made from rice straw (Fowler collection); Indian tableau constructed of dried clay, mud,
any increase in the vitamin and white rice. Before the advent of straw, wood, paint, cloth, metals, plastic, enamel and string, on commission by Gourishankar Bandophadaya in West Bengal, shows the
mineral content of staple grains most of these nutrients machine mills, people dehulled rice blue-skinned deity Annapurna giving rice to yellow-skinned Shiva, who sits on a throne between porcelain-skinned Bhringi and dark-gray
helps combat this insidious form of manually by mortar and pestle. For Nandi (2003, Fowler collection); Balinese figures of metal, wood, silk, plant fiber and glass, known collectively as Rambut Sedana, serve
malnutrition. High-quality protein most, brown rice was the only rice. as receptacles for the rice goddess Bhatari Sri Dewi and her consort, Bethara Sedana, when a priest invokes the deities to take up temporary
maize, developed by the International Maize and Wheat Today, Asians associate white rice with modernization and residence at the beginning of Balinese rituals (Mershon collection of Indonesian art); Javanese shadow puppet made of hide, horn, paint,
Improvement Center in Mexico, is now being popularized affluence, and brown rice with backwardness and poverty.
thread and plastic, constructed on commission by Daniel Mulyana in East Java, Indonesia, represents the rice goddess Dewi Sri (2002,
in many developing countries. Rice cultivars high in beta If brown rice were marketed in Asia as a fashionable
Fowler collection); Ifugao carved-wood granary figures, or bulul, from the northern Philippines, normally consist of a male and female
carotene (provitamin A), iron and zinc are in the pipeline at health food, as in Europe and North America, people would
pair, but this set includes an infant to make the connection between the rice crop and human fertility (Thomas Murray collection).
IRRI and some of its national partners in Asia. become accustomed once more to its grittier texture and
There is, however, another strategy that has not received nutty flavor. At the household level, people would learn
the attention it deserves: encouraging the consumption of that cooking brown rice requires a little more water and The Art of Rice: Spirit and Sustenance in Asia, an exhibition in the Fowler Museum of Cultural History, University
whole grains. cooking time (or else 30 minutes of soaking). Rice millers of California at Los Angeles, Sunset and Westwood Boulevards, Westwood. Open Wednesday-Sunday,
12-5 pm (Thursday until 8 pm). No admission charge; parking $7. For information, call (+1-310) 825-
Whole rice and wheat offer significant levels of protein would adjust their machines to produce brown rice — an easy
4361. Closes on 25 April and reopens at Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts,
and essential vitamins and minerals, but most of these procedure if demand makes the extra effort worthwhile. Napa, California, in September-November, and at Honolulu Academy of Arts, February-April 2005.
nutrients are removed in the polishing stage of the milling A significant drawback is shorter shelf life because the Major funding from National Endowment for the Humanities, Rockefeller Foundation, Getty Grant
process. In rice, polishing removes 15% of the protein, 85% lipid-rich layer left on the whole grain is susceptible to microbial Program, Henry Luce Foundation, and University of California Pacific Rim Research Program.
of the fat, 90% of the calcium, 75% of the phosphorus, and insect damage. The hulling process — particularly using
80% of the thiamine, 70% of the riboflavin and 68% of the metal rollers — breaks up the bran cells, releasing their lipase
niacin. Additionally, whole-grain rice — popularly called enzyme, which breaks down the oil in the bran, producing free
brown rice — is rich in dietary fiber, which protects against fatty acids that cause rancidity and spoilage.
hypercholesterolemia, diabetes and colorectal cancer. And, The obvious solution is just-in-time hulling, but this
of course, bran functions as a gentle laxative. isn’t always practical. Experiments in the Philippines have
Brown rice also has high levels of phytic acid, which shown, however, that brown rice dehulled with rubber rollers,
diminishes the availability of essential minerals such as which are now commonplace, can be kept for 90-150 days at
iron, phosphorus and calcium but protects people prone to room temperature (23 to 34°C) without vacuum packing, if
kidney stones by reducing urinary calcium. (A mutant rice the grain is dried to 14% moisture content. Brown rice with
line low in phytic acid has been identified, and the character a higher moisture content can be packed in custom-sized
has been bred into a popular rice variety in the United States, polyethylene bags (2-5 kg) and then sealed, which is good for
halving its phytic acid content.) 2 to 3 weeks’ storage — or longer in a refrigerator.
38 Rice Today January 2004
 AsianGrain is a wellspring of everything Asian.

Unmask the landscape of diversity that is Asia,

as captured in magnificent photographs of its

people, scenery, art, culture, history and lifestyle.

A virtual journey of discovery

begins this month.