Asia's rice industry in crisis<\/p>\n
Agence France-Presse, Manila<\/p>\n
Asia's rice industry is in crisis due to inadequate support,
\ndriving farmers into penury and spurring mass migration with
\npotential adverse implications on regional security, the
\nInternational Rice Research Institute (IRRI) said on Friday.<\/p>\n
\"The Asian rice industry is in trouble,\" an IRRI statement
\nquoted its director-general Ronald Cantrell as saying.<\/p>\n
\"Not only is the rice industry in Asia facing a crisis in the
\nsupply of such essential resources as land, labor and water, but
\n-- most importantly of all -- many nations are finding it
\ndifficult to develop sustainable ways to provide decent
\nlivelihoods for rice farmers and consumers.\"<\/p>\n
Philippines-based IRRI said the stability of Asia, including
\nthe \"troubled nations of Indonesia and the Philippines, is
\nthreatened by the continuing lack of development\" in its most
\nimportant cereal crop.<\/p>\n
Rice farming remains a poverty trap in many Asian nations,
\nmainly because of very small farm size and compounded by
\ndeclining support for public rice research, it added.<\/p>\n
The institute said Asia's rice producers enjoyed annual yield
\nincreases of 2.5 percent and production gains of more than 3
\npercent between the early years of the Green Revolution and up to
\nthe early 1980s.<\/p>\n
However, from the late 1980s until the late 1990s, the rate of
\nannual yield increase was nearly halved, and the rate of
\nproduction increase fell even further.<\/p>\n
As stagnating yields push them deeper into poverty, \"many
\nrural rice communities in Asia are growing increasingly
\nrestless,\" it warned.<\/p>\n
Poverty and a lack of opportunity \"can foster instability.
\nDesperate people forced to leave home in search of work are
\nsusceptible to extremism,\" it said, citing the case of one of the
\nconvicted Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) militants convicted of the
\nOctober 2002 bombings in Bali, killing more than 200.<\/p>\n
While the case of the convict, who fled the village of
\nTenggulun to seek work in Malaysia where he was recruited by the
\nJI \"is a worst-case scenario, such reports should not be
\ndiscounted,\" the IRRI statement said.<\/p>\n
\"A lack of opportunity in heavily agricultural Tenggulun has
\nforced 20 percent of its working-age population to leave in
\nsearch of employment -- a story repeated time and again
\nthroughout rural Asia.\"<\/p>\n
Cantrell said international support for public rice research
\nhas been collapsing, with mainly Western donor nations taking aid
\nmoney elsewhere, including to Africa after having achieved
\n\"visible success\" in Asia.<\/p>\n
\"While IRRI still has some very committed donors, there is no
\ndoubt that the institute could do a lot more if it had more
\nsupport,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Cantrell said new rice technologies developed by IRRI and
\nother entities have not reached ordinary farmers in many
\ncountries because the extension systems for delivering them are
\nchronically underfunded.<\/p>\n
\"Assuming there are 200 million rice farmers in Asia, an
\ninvestment of just 40 U.S. cents per farmer for each of the next
\n20 years would go a long way toward ensuring that they can earn a
\ndecent living sustainably supplying poor rice consumers with
\nplentiful supplies of affordable, nutritious rice,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
\n(FAO) on Friday opened a two-day international conference aimed
\nat increasing rice production through greater efficiency and
\nsustainability.<\/p>\n
The conference is a part of the UN General Assembly's
\nInternational Year of Rice 2004 awareness and action campaign.<\/p>",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
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