After almost two decades of testing and implementation around the world, the “Green Super Rice” is starting to have a dramatic effect on crop yields. In the Philippines, more than 5,000 hectares are being planted and some 90,000 tons of rice are expected to be harvested.
“We are at the fruit-bearing stage,” said Dr. Jauhar Ali, a senior scientist and regional project coordinator of the program at the Laguna-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). “The harvest is good.”
Two years ago, farmers who plant GSR in Maguindanao reported a two to three-fold increase in their rice harvests within three cropping seasons. “The GSR is a very promising rice variety,” Makimod Mending, regional secretary of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao.
In the past, farmers only harvested 3.1 to 3.3 metric tons per hectare per cropping season using the in-bred rice varieties. But when they planted GSR, the production went up to seven metric tons per hectare.
In Bohol, a farmer planted a rice strain suited to salt water conditions to an experimental plot but some rains almost drowned the seedlings. Worse, the area dried out at the flowering stage and received no more water thereafter.
“The results were amazing,” Dr. Ali reported. “Normally, the farmer would have received no crop at all. But the plot produced 3.3 tons per hectare.”
The IRRI – crucible of the Green Revolution – developed the GSR together with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. A non-profit organization established in 1960s by Ford and Rockefeller Foundation, it now funded by national governments as well as philanthropic organizations like Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The GSR program started in 1998 “involving the painstaking crossbreeding of more than 250 different varieties and rice hybrids,” said a news report. Most varieties chosen were those having difficultly growing in such conditions as drought and low inputs, including no pesticide and less fertilizer. Also handpicked were those with rapid establishment rates to out-compete weeds, thus reducing the need for herbicides.
“The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation originally funded the program with an US$18 million, three-year grant,” the news report further said. “Because the strains have been produced by publicly funded organizations, they do not require payment of royalties, such as those demanded by Monsanto and other commercial companies.”
“Rice bred to perform well in the toughest conditions where the poorest farmers grow rice is a step away from reaching farmers,” said IRRI in a statement. “The GSR varieties are climate-smart and can help farmers protect the environment – and themselves,” it added.
What makes GSR differ from other known varieties or hybrids before? “Unlike present-day rice plants, the new variety produces seed heads on every shoot,” wrote Bob Holmes, in an article which appeared in New Scientist. “This means that the plants do not waste energy on unproductive shoots. The plants also pack more than two hundred rice grains into each seed head compared with an average of around a hundred a head in present-day rice. In addition, the new ‘architecture; makes the rice plants more compact, allowing farmers to plant them more densely.”
The GSR has been called “super rice” because it is predicted to increase rice yields by 25-50%. “Plant breeders have developed a variety of rice that has the potential to yield a staggering 25% more than today’s best,” wrote Holmes in his report. “This is the first time in nearly thirty years that researchers have raised the ceiling on yields of rice, the grain that feeds half the world’s population.”
This is good news for Asia, where population continues to grow. “We know that for the next 10 years, we need to produce 8 to 10 million more tons (of rice) each year,” Dr. Achim Dobermann, IRRI’s deputy director general for research, was quoted as saying by LiveScience. “That would essentially enable us to keep pace with the growing population.”
But it’s not only population growth that should be prime motivation to develop new rice varieties. “Population growth, increasing demand from changing diets, dwindling land and water resources for agriculture, higher energy costs, and the huge uncertainties regarding the effects of climate change present scientists and policy makers with additional challenges,” wrote Vishakha N. Desai, president of the Asia Society, in the foreword of the report, “Never an Empty Bowl: Sustaining Food Security in Asia.”
In its recent issue of Rice Today, IRRI said that GSR is “already in the hands of national agricultural agencies in key rice-growing countries for testing and development.”
In the Philippines, the Philippine Rice Institute (PhilRice) is going through a massive adaptability trials under the High Yielding Technology Adaptation (HYTA) program of the Department of Agriculture.
According to Thelma Padolina, one of the implementers of the Food Staples Sufficiency Program’s Accelerating the development and adoption of Next-Generation rice varieties for major ecosystems in the Philippines project, three GSR materials were formally approved as commercial varieties in saline-prone and upland areas.
“These new varieties will be brought to the target areas through the Participatory Variety Selection (PVS) trials for better adoption,” she said.
The GSR is what the world needs now – especially with the looming global warming. “Climate change poses a big challenge to smallholder farmers who already have limited land and financial resources,” IRRI said. “Unpredictable weather patterns make them even more vulnerable to crop losses. Giving farmers access to GSR varieties that can withstand multiple stresses from climate change can help mitigate its impact on their livelihood.”
In addition, the research done with GSR does not involve genetic engineering. “It involves taking hundreds of donor cultivars from dozens of different countries, identifying significant variations in responses to drought, global warming and other problems, and ‘backcross’ breeding – painstakingly crossing a hybrid with one of its parents or with a plant genetically like one of its parents, then screening the backcross bulk populations after one or two backcrosses under severe abiotic and biotic stress conditions to identify transgressive segregants that are doing better than both parents and the checks,” explained an article which appeared in www.konfrontasi.com.
In the New Scientist feature, Holmes believes IRRI’s new rice variety plays a big important in the race to keep food production abreast of population growth. Dr. Mark Rosegrant, an economist with the Washington, D.C.-based International Food Policy Research Institute, was quoted as saying: “You still need to have yields grow at 2 percent per year over the next twenty years to keep rice consumption stable. There are not many ways you can get that except from this new rice.”
Rice, known in the science world as Oryza sativa, helps feed almost half the people on the planet. And in the Philippines, rice is the leading staple food. In fact, Filipinos spend more on rice than any other food. Rice is the country’s leading staple food. As the late food epicure Doreen Fernandez wrote: “If we did not have rice, our deepest comfort food, we would probably feel less Filipino.”
Although rice is basically a complex carbohydrate, its protein contains all eight of the essential amino acids and complements the amino acids found in other foods. Low in sodium and fat, with no cholesterol or gluten, rice is a boon to weight worriers and those allergic to other grains. Aside from carbohydrates, rice also contains protein, minerals, vitamins, and fiber.
