Do you know that rice is not grown much beyond the Asian continent? With 2.5 billion more mouths to feed by 2050, there is urgent need to improve productivity.
“Sixty is the average age of farmers in rice-producing countries. Men have moved out to other sectors. Increasingly women are getting into the driver’s seat in agriculture. We cannot leave women to be doing heavy manual work. This is neither healthy nor productive,” said Dr. Matthew Morell, Director General International Rice Research Institute.
I recently visited the sprawling campus of IRRI at Los Banos near Manila. The Institute is engaged in rice research and in improving the lot of rice farmers the world over.
At the museum at IRRI, I saw a striking visual that depicted countries that grew rice. Most of America, Europe, Africa, Australia and New Zealand are not growing rice. Rice is predominantly raised in Asia and the total production last year was 472 million tonnes. Around 144 million farm families, forming a fourth of world farmers, grow it over 166 million hectares (10 per cent of global farmland). These men account for approximately 400 million rural poor (40 per cent of world poor).
Morell pointed to several changes that will impact rice production like population growth, urbanisation, cost, availability of inputs and climate change. Global population will rise to 10 billion over the next 20 years and demand an additional 96 million tonnes of rice. In the next two years, half the population will live in cities. Cost of inputs and wages would rapidly increase. Climate change will impact production and productivity,” said Morell.
Morell stressed the need for innovation and research to discover better production systems that will meet the challenges of climate change.
With vast differences among countries, the ability to use technology varies as also are the dissemination systems. “What are the policies that would facilitate taking technology to farmers? What is the overall strategy in agriculture business and startups? If we produce more, does the farmer get a decent profit? Do the markets pay well? Does it provide a premium for the higher costs incurred? We need to align these issues to develop systems that function and provide farmers in the value chains with a decent standard of living,” said Morell.
Focus on every aspect of value chain,…
Morell pointed out that we continue to keep the farmers at subsistence level. The IRRI DG stressed the need to focus on every aspect of the value chain from productivity and production to storage, transportation, marketing, etc.
There is a constant demand for land for uses other than agriculture. In India, in recent years, we witness strict regulations for pulling land out of agriculture for other purposes. We see the farmers resisting such
attempts. “Young people do not want to stand in the field up to the knee in the mud. They want to do more exotic things and earn good incomes to provide their children with better education, health” pointed out Morell.
I referred to the rapid fragmentation of land holdings, averaging around two acres in Tamil Nadu. This has denied effective application of science and technology. Morell said that “in several instances, IRRI helped improve the productivity of small landholdings:” in cooperative efforts, I notice farmers with large farms and those with small farms in the neighborhood operate collectively. This allows mechanisation and helps reduce cost,” said Morell.
I pointed to the scope for permitting lease of land over long term, say 15 years, without alienating ownership, as a possible solution. Morell noted that agriculture is going to move in that direction. He raised the question: “what will happen to the farmers who lease their land? There are issues related to migration that required suitable political policies,” he said.
Need to create better varieties, raise production to full potential
At IRRI, research is focused on developing varieties that would cope with increased average temperatures, salinity, humidity,flooding.
IRRI is preparing farmers for an even more unreliable production environment: “we will have a more significant challenge by 2050: the need to produce to feed an additional 2.5 billion people, when we have less land, water and labour and more expensive inputs. This means we have to create better varieties, raise production to full potential, to bridge the gap between potential yield and actual yield,” said Morell.
