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14 BIO LIFE January – March 2005 ‘Doubly green revolution’ now in Asia TRADITIONAL corn farming in Mindanao. A “BETTER” kind of Green Revolution, release at IRRI’s website www.irri.org said. this time called “doubly green revolution,” The “doubly green revolution” was is now invading the rice fields of first conceptualized by Gordon Conway, Asia, including the Philippines, as farmers former head of the Rockefeller Foundation adopt new technologies that reduce their in a 1997 book of the same title. inappropriate use of pesticides and boost Conway argued that the world needed a their incomes, a rice expert said. doubly-green revolution that would be Ronald Cantrell, director general of the even more productive than the first Philippines-based International Rice Green Revolution, and “doubly green” by Research Institute (IRRI), told the annual conserving natural resources and general meeting of the Consultative Group protecting the environment. on International Agricultural Research “Today, we would like to suggest that, (CGIAR) held in Mexico in October, that certainly in rice, the doubly green revolution the days of unsustainable, high-input rice has commenced,” Cantrell said. “IRRI farming will soon be a thing of the past. and its partners in Asia have already He described IRRI’s research strategy enjoyed noteworthy success with environment-friendly for the 21st century as breeding improved technologies for improving rice varieties with durable diseaseresistance, rice productivity and poor farmers’ lives.” while developing innovative, In Asia, the Green Revolution in rice sustainable cropping systems, a news began with IRRI’s release in 1966 of IR8, the first modern, high-yielding semi-dwarf rice variety, IRRI said. Half of the modern rice varieties released in South and Southeast Asia over 38 years derive at least partly from work by IRRI and its partners. The global rice harvest has more than doubled in that period, racing slightly ahead of population growth. Larger per capita harvests have helped to reduce world rice prices by 80 percent over the past 20 years. At the same time, poor consumers have benefited through lower prices for their staple food and their single largest expense, and farmers have enjoyed lower unit costs and higher profits. At the national level, Asians have achieved food security. “However, as we all know, the job started in the first Green Revolution is not finished,” Cantrell said. “Although it did stave off hunger to a significant extent on two continents, an estimated 800 million still do not have access to sufficient food to meet their needs, and millions of farmers remain trapped in poverty. “We have learned some important lessons over the last 40 years,” Cantrell added. “Modern technologies can be environmentally sensitive if they are designed and used with the benefit of modern ecological knowledge. And IRRI is committed to ensuring a cleaner, greener environment.” Cantrell cited four environmentally focused research achievements. First, work in China has confirmed that crop biodiversity can play a key role in helping farmers improve their livelihoods while protecting the environment and their families’ health. In 1997, IRRI scientists and collaborators in Yunnan started experiments with interplanting to control the devastating rice blast fungus, while reducing fungicide use. The technology spread from a mere 12 hectares in an initial experiment in 1997 to 812 hectares in 1998, 3,000 hectares in 1999 and 43,000 hectares in 2000. In 2000, The New York Times described this project as one of the largest agricultural experiments ever. Today, farmers across 10 Chinese provinces interplant nearly 1 million hectares, achieving better plant protection with minimal fungicide use and preserving popular traditional varieties, IRRI said. In Vietnam, IRRI and its government partners have succeeded in implementing integrated pest management and breaking the farmers’ dependence on insecticides. Research there has shown that
January – March 2005 BIO LIFE 15 spraying in the first 40 days after sowing rice is a waste of money and a threat to farmers’ health and the environment. Through communication campaign, using radio dramas, leaflets, posters and billboards, researchers persuaded almost 2 million rice-growing households in the Mekong Delta to spray much less. Surveys in 1999 showed insecticide use had halved from an average of 3.4 applications per farmer per season to 1.7 applications. The percentage of farmers who believed that insecticides bring higher yield had plunged from 83 to 13 percent, and those who realized that insecticides killed the natural enemies of rice pests had risen from 29 to 79 percent, IRRI said. In Bangladesh, the success story in reducing chemical use in rice farming came after three years of the IRRI-led project called Livelihood Improvement Through Ecology (LITE), where more than 2,000 farmers have reduced their insecticide use by 99 percent. Before the project, high government subsidies on insecticides got farmers hooked on spraying. With continued donor support for the project, the next decade may see insecticide use disappear among the 11.8 million rice farmers of Bangladesh. The challenge for farmers in the use of chemical fertilizers has always been when to apply them and how much. After about 10 years of development and study, IRRI is promoting a simple site-specific nutrient management (SSNM) technique by which farmers feed the rice plant nutrients only as and when needed, when nutrients in indigenous sources—soil, water, crop residues and manure—are less than optimal. As the two SSNM sites in Bangladesh showed, net return with real-time nitrogen management, compared with that of the farmers’ practice, was on average US$41 to US$65 per hectare better for each season—across five seasons, IRRI said. The benefits from SSNM multiply when improved management of phosphorus and potassium is included. SSNM is currently being evaluated by extension workers and farmers at some 20 locations in Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam. Each location represents an area of intensive rice farming on more than 100,000 hectares with similar soils and cropping systems, it added. “And so, as farmers across the riceproducing world join us in the doubly green revolution,” Cantrell said, “we are confident that food security will improve significantly for millions of impoverished people.” The emerging job provider THE predicament of the present gov-ernment is how to address its job crisis at the same time compete in the global economic arena. Its economic policy must coincide with its social and political agenda. Programs and policies to solve the unemployment problem must be politically sensitive. Their implementation must cushion the undesirable impact on marginalized sector. Investments sourced locally or overseas must have strong employment orientation and work-force-biased. One such area which have high potentials to provide job opportunities is biotechnology-based industries. Referred to as entrepreneurial life science sector by an international accounting firm, Ernest and Young, biotechnology industry offers windows of opportunities for employment. While its applications which involve the use of modern scientific techniques to produce or develop products and services have encountered resistance and consumer distrust, biotechnology will certainly become a strategic employment generator. In north American and European countries, biotechnology industry has significantly provided jobs for thousands of workers. As a multibillion dollar industry in the US biotech companies which invested about $10 billion in research and development were reported to have already provided jobs to more than 200,000 persons. Other companies in Canada and Europe have similarly accounted for increased job opportunities in these areas. As a result of scientifically and financially successful applications in health and environment, investors have shifted their funds to biotechbased businesses. In the health sector, about a hundred biotechnology drugs are expected to be in the market. More companies are reported to be involved in agro-food business. Applications of modern biotechnology to crops and to the conservation of food have been advancing rapidly. Environmental degradation and climate change have pro- Joe Escartin vided added impetus for the adoption of biotechnology, particularly GMOs in agri-based industry. Certainly concern for food security will make the advent of biotechnology inevitable. Being a knowledge-intensive industry, biotechnology will bring about expansion in research and development activities of companies as their competitive edge. Investments in the intellectual capital of companies will usher a bright prospects for employment for the Filipino knowledge-based workforce. Manufacturing industries for materials such as biodegradable plastics, biopolymers and biopesticides, novel fibers and timbers are potential employment generators. With its contributions to industrial processes, food production and storage as well as drugs; safe health and environment, biotechnology will become the business of the future. It will be a significant jobs provider for many of our graduates of science-based courses. As we welcome the advent of biotechnology as potential provider of job opportunities for our knowledgebased workers, we cannot disregard some apprehensions and distrusts of some sectors. Unease about health and safety is very prominent. One of the reasons for the public unease is the genetically modified foods and crops. For instance, it is feared that antibiotic resistant genes inserted in genetically modified plants for monitoring purposes may spread to humans. Also, the so called “super weeds” due to possible leak out of genes put into plant to make them resistant to disease and pests may cause Turn to page 29
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