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The need for a second Asian Green Revolution amid a growing world
food and rice crisis became a dominant theme at the Asian-European
Editors Forum recently in Bangkok, Thailand.
The forum gathered journalists and rice experts
from Asia and Europe in a discussion of policy issues on the world
food crisis, its effects on Asia, along with the search for
solutions to a global problem.
Two experts, current and past, from the
International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños, spoke at
the forum.
Duncan Macintosh, development director and
spokesperson, IRRI, led the discussions on the rice crisis as a way
to another Green Revolution.
Dr. Kwanchai Gomez, executive director, the Asia
Rice Foundation in Los Baños, discussed an Asia minus rice (“it
isn’t Asia anymore”). She worked with IRRI from 1967 to 1996.
Dr. Sebastian Faust, executive director, Asian
Development Bank, discussed the effects of the food crisis on Asia
and Europe, citing short-term and eight structural factors that, he
said, sparked the problem.
All throughout the forum, a question nagged the
participants: Could rising food prices be a threat for Asian
democracies? Food riots have erupted from West Africa to South Asia.
Thirty-three countries are threatened with political and social
unrest on rising food and energy costs. The government in Haiti has
fallen. Fragile democracies are feeling the pressure of food
insecurity.
Werner vom Busch, director, Media Programme
Asia, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, urged the journalists to use their
influence to raise consciousness over poverty and food scarcities
and to speak for the poor and the middle class in the quest for food
sufficiency and ending hunger.
Rice, staple food of half of mankind
“Rice is the staple food for half the human
population, and growing it is the single most important economic
activity in the world,” The Washington Post said in a recent
issue.
“Rice farming is also the main economic
activity of millions of rural poor, many of whom do not own their
land,” added Duncan Macintosh.
Macintosh noted economic growth in Asia has been
driven by the “rice sector.” Of the world’s 1.1 billion poor
people, almost 700 million with income of less than a dollar a day
reside in the rice-growing countries of Asia. Poor people spend as
much as 30 percent to 40 percent of their income to buy rice.
Adam Barclay, editor, Rice Today, an IRRI
publication, has summarized the scope of the problem succinctly:
Declining rice stocks. The world is eating more cereals than it is
producing. Thailand and Vietnam, the world’s two largest rice
exporters, have capped exports at lower levels than previously to
ensure domestic supplies. Rising energy costs are hitting farmers.
Increasing demand for meat from Asia’s growing urban population is
diverting production from food grains to animal feed. The rising
thirst for biofuel is starting to affect food production. And
climate change threatens to hamper production.
The first Green Revolution grew 40 years ago in
the rice bowls of Asia to fight hunger. “The Green Revolution is
generally believed to have saved one billion lives over six decades,
making it arguably the single-most-effective philanthropic
initiative in human history,” wrote The New York Times in its
March 8 issue.
IRRI spearheaded 1st Green Revolution
The International Rice Research Institute,
established in 1960 in Los Baños, Laguna, by the Ford and
Rockefeller Foundations, spearheaded the Green Revolution.
In the late 1960s modern, newly developed,
high-yielding rice varieties launched the Green Revolution, which
rapidly pushed up yields and allowed rice production to keep pace
with population growth.
Dr. Kei Kajisa, agricultural economist, said the
Green Revolution alleviated poverty by reducing the real rice price
on the world market by more than 50 percent without depleting
producers’ profit.
The Green Revolution made possible the Masagana
99 rice production program of the Marcos administration. Under
Arturo “Bong” Tanco, Marcos’ agriculture minister, the
Philippines became rice-sufficient and began to export
Philippine-grown rice for the first time in history.
Philippine administrations subsequently
relegated rice production from state priorities, relying on imports
and the little that was grown domestically to feed a fast-growing
population.
Experts at the forum said IRRI could help solve
the rice crisis and prevent its recurrence through additional
investments in key research and development areas.
Macintosh said that the experience and lessons
of the Green Revolution showed that farmers will use new varieties
and technologies and consumers will use them if price and quality
are acceptable.
Increase productivity in rainfed rice
The world is better positioned to take advantage
of whatever science has to offer since the public platforms required
for success are in place to support a new Green Revolution.
Global food security will depend on sustainable
high outputs from intensive irrigated systems, he noted, adding
poverty reduction and global food supplies will depend on increasing
productivity in rainfed rice.
Finally, he advocated a better understanding of
the cultural, social and economic factors that positively influence
the adoption of integrated technological advances.
The Konrad Adenauer Foundation established the
Media Programme Asia in 1996 to promote a free and responsible press
in Southeast Asia, particularly in the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations, through regional conferences, training seminars and
meetings. The program is proud to have founded and supported the
Konrad Adenauer Asian Center for Journalism at the Ateneo de Manila
University.
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