S. Asia boosts rice output

S. Asia boosts rice output

LOS BANOS, Philippines (AFP): South and Southeast Asia's less hospitable rain-fed lands are likely to start in efforts to boost rice harvests and ease a projected supply crunch by the turn of the century, scientists say.

Agronomists at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) here say that these non-irrigated lands will be the source of the world's next potential miracle rice seed, which they are feverishly trying to develop.

Harvests in irrigated farms, which account for 75 percent of the world's total rice output, have already reached their plateau at 6.5 to seven tons per hectare (acre), even with the aid of the most modern scientific techniques.

With population growth out-pacing production, attention is now focused on breaching the yield barrier in the rain-fed lowlands and flood-prone fields of Bangladesh, Burma, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as well as parts of Southeast Asia such as Cambodia.

They comprise 40 percent of the world's rice-producing area but account for only 25 percent of the total harvests of 520 million tons annually.