Museum highlights struggle to boost rice production

Museum highlights struggle to boost rice production

By Ruth Youngblood

LOS BANOS, Philippines (DPA): Visitors at the world's only rice museum stroll under towering plants, gamely till fields with a water buffalo, and solemnly inspect an ancient infant burial jar stocked with grains.

As scientists struggle to boost rice production in the face of a soaring population, dwindling land and the lingering effects of El Nino-induced droughts, colleagues, government leaders, diplomats, farmers, students and curious tourists are descending on the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in record numbers.

The zeal to learn more about the most vital food crop is escalating with researchers fighting against time. By 2025, the world will need about 880 million tons of rice, 90 percent more than the average over the last five years.

"Riceworld provides a unique learning experience," said manager Mario Morvillon, instrumental in assuring the eye-opening displays are anything but boring.

There are no admonitions against touching. Interaction is encouraged, particularly in a section differentiating between friendly insects and pests to reduce dependence on insecticides. Microscopes are plentiful for a close look at the most minute helpers and enemies of the plants.

Morvillon, a specialist in agronomy and genetic resources, or one of his equally-trained assistants, is available to answer queries, from the simplest to the most sophisticated. An IRRI researcher who worked in Africa, south and southeast Asia before being named Riceworld manager, Morvillon views his role as "heightening public awareness".

IRRI, with headquarters in the Philippines and offices in 11 other countries, is the world's leading international rice research and training center. Visitors have been showing up since research activities began in 1962 at the sprawling facilities on 252 acres of experimental farms 60 kilometers south of Manila on the University of the Philippines campus.

By the 1990s, the numbers had soared to 30,000 annually, Morvillon said. "Public interest was soaring, but we could not keep interrupting scientists in the laboratories or researchers in the fields," Morvillon said.

Riceworld was opened in 1994 by H.E. Karl Friedrich Gansauer, the German ambassador to the Philippines, whose country provided the bulk of the funding. Last year, the free museum attracted 120,133 spectators and far more are expected.

All are intrigued by progress on "super rice". Breeding started in 1989 when 2,000 varieties from IRRI's genebank were grown to identify donor plants. Since hybridization work started, more than 1,000 crosses have been made, 50,000 breeding lines, products and plant types with the desired traits evaluated. Most of the donors came from Indonesia and belonged to a group of rices called "javanicas".

"The aim is developing a plant type with yields of 12.5 tons per hectare, an increase of 25 percent over current high-yielding varieties," Morvillon said. Improving grain quality is a current objective, he said, and pointed out the extensive root system and thicker, studier stems to prevent the plant from falling.

With the new rice being field-tested at IRRI's experimental plots, Morvillon said, "Hopefully, it will be really for farmer's fields in two years."

"If it proves to be as resistant to disease and insects as hoped and meets all the other specifications," Morvillon said "super rice" may well be the answer to the daunting challenge ahead. "We're keeping our fingers crossed," he added.

Samples from the genebank where 85,000 varieties from 110 countries are packed in aluminum cans and stored at minus 18 C are on display. IRRI returned to Cambodia seeds of 524 traditional varieties that had disappeared during the political conflicts that left more than one million people dead in the infamous "killing fields." Seeds were also returned to war-torn Vietnam. As a result, both countries have emerged self-sufficient in their primary staple.

The journey through Riceworld spans different time zones that reveal rice as the lifeblood of billions of people who cultivated it for thousands of years. A centerpiece shows carbonized rice grains and hulls dating back to 2,500 B.C., fossils found in archaeological excavations in northeast Thailand.

Large clay jars unearthed in northern Thailand "provided room to place a layer of rice on the bottom, the dead baby, and another layer of rice on top," said Morvillon. The urns go back to 1,000 to 300 B.C.

There are more than 500 rice farming tools in use for centuries for different stages of cultivation from Asia, Africa, South America, Australia and North America and the clothing of rice farmers from Myanmar, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, Laos, Sri Lanka and the Philippines.

Even the songs they sing to lighten their spirits during their hard labors are featured, and visitors are encourage to sing along. One easy-to-learn ditty goes, "Planting rice is never fun. Bent from morn till the setting sun."