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The Philippines has called on international donors and financial
institutions to increase funding support for agricultural
productivity research to address the global food crisis, Philippine
News Agency reported Sunday.
The news agency quoted Philippine Ambassador to
the United Nations Hilario Davide Jr. as saying at a UN special
meeting on food crisis in New York last week that more money should
be donated to food research institutions like the International Rice
Research Institute (IRRI) based in the Philippines.
The Filipino official told the Special Meeting
on the Food Crisis convened by the Economic and Social Council of
the UN, that the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the
Internal Fund for Agricultural Development and development partners
should help raise the funds for research of the IRRI.
The Philippines has been severely hit by the
soaring food prices which has forced the government to spend
millions of dollars to buy food abroad and secure food supply at
home.
“The research of the IRRI, the world’s main
repository of rice seeds, as well as genetic and other information
about rice—the crop that feeds nearly half of the peoples of the
world—has been, unfortunately, tremendously slowed down because of
cuts in funds for agricultural research,” he said.
He also said damage to rice crops caused by such
insects like the brown plant hopper, a tiny biting fly that has
caused havoc across East Asia, would have been prevented if only
IRRI’s budget for research has not been cut or reduced, according
to the report.
The IRRI has pointed out that brown plant hopper
is multiplying by the billions and chewing through rice paddies in
East Asia, threatening the diets of many poor people, he said.
Davide also said that although no fewer than 14
new types of genetic resistance varieties of rice have been
discovered, the budget cuts prevent the IRRI from moving any further
to breed these traits into widely used rice varieties.
“If money is available for research, IRRI can
accomplish the task in four to seven years and save millions of
people from hunger, from deaths,” he was quoted as saying.
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