Rice is, arguably, the world’s most important food crop. In spite of this prominence, the private sector for many years concentrated only on developing rice crop protection products such as herbicides and insecticides. There was little investment in improving rice varieties, and low participation in the crop seed business. In the mid-1990s, however, several agricultural...
The genebanks of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) are often portrayed in the popular press as villains, the archetypical biopirates who steal huge amounts of biodiversity from their rightful owners and ride roughshod over the rights of poor farmers. At the same time the genebanks are often portrayed as heroes, the saviors of biodiversity...
Discussion of the system of rice intensification (SRI) is unfortunate because it implies SRI merits serious consideration. SRI does not deserve such attention. A multinational team has shown from both theoretical evaluations and a number of experimental tests that SRI offers no yield advantage. Significantly, these results by Sheehy et al. were published in Field Crops...
The system of rice intensification (SRI) was developed in Madagascar 20 years ago by Fr. Henri de Laulanié of the Society of Jesus after 2 decades of working with farmers to raise their rice production without depending on external inputs. Today, SRI is gaining acceptance around the world. Practiced only in Madagascar until 1999, it has since demonstrated its environmentally...
Agricultural advances in the past 3 decades have made remarkable progress in providing affordable cereals to most of the poor in the developing world. As a result — and despite the continuing plight of 800 million desperately poor — we hear less these days about famine and severe calorie and protein deficiency in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, the two most vulnerable...
