Coops a good strategy to increase rice yield – IRRI scientist

Self-financed farmer cooperatives are a viable strategy to increase irrigated rice area to attain a national yield average of six tons per hectare, a scientist who help pioneer the first high-yielding hybrid in the mid-1960s said.

Dr. Peter Jennings of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) based in Los Baños, Laguna said that whereas high-yielding varieties emanating from the IRRI had a sudden and large impact beginning in the 1960s, yield improvement in subsequent decades has come largely from farmer initiatives with little contribution from research.