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."