As world grasps for rice, Cambodia's success story
The rice-ex****ting country has seen a dramatic rebound thanks to years
of agricultural research.
By David Montero | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the May 1, 2008 edition
Phnom Penh, Cambodia - For 30 years the rice fields at a commune on
the outskirts of Phnom Penh lay mostly barren and unused, a legacy of
the Khmer Rouge, the Communist regime that led almost 2 million
Cambodians to their death, many from starvation.
But today Cambodia has a rice surplus. And these fields are incubating
some of the most advanced rice technology in Cambodia, under the
tutelage of the Cambodian Agricultural Research Institute (CARDI),
which is at the center of Cambodia's largely unheralded "green"
revolution.
As the global food crisis continues to spark riots and rationing,
Cambodia's turnaround showcases the power =96 and the limits =96 of rice
research, experts say. Few countries in modern history have engineered
as dramatic an agricultural rebound as Cambodia.
In 10 years, beginning in 1987, by applying the tool suite of the
Green Revolution =96 new rice varieties, improved irrigation, and better
fertilizer =96 the country has risen to a peak of rice output, producing
enough rice to be self-sufficient for the first time in 25 years.
"It has been a big achievement for [Cambodia]," says Men Sarom,
CARDI's director. "And I think research contributed a lot to that."
The kernel of that research was first planted in the 1960s, when
scientists at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), a
pioneering agricultural institute based in the Philippines, developed
higher-yield varieties of grain and introduced new systems of
irrigation and fertilizer. Thus was born the Rice Revolution.
Of particular im****tance was IR8, a rice variety that had a yield
double that of normal rice, was less susceptible to disease and more
responsive to fertilizer. Dubbed the "miracle rice," it has been
credited with averting massive famine in India, Africa, and throughout
the developing world in the 1970s.
Cambodia is home to one of the Green Revolution's greatest successes.
In 1969, Cambodia's annual rice production was 4 million tons a year,
a healthy output. But by 1980, the 6 million people who had survived
the Communist Khmer Rouge era, from 1975 to 1978, were on the brink of
starvation. By 1997, however, Cambodia had been virtually reborn: its
rice fields were producing nearly as much rice as they had in 1969,
but on half the land, making the country rice self-sufficient once
again.
The rebound was the result of a collaboration between the Cambodian
government, the IRRI, and the Australia government, which together
invested millions of dollars in irrigation, infrastructure, and
fertilizer beginning in 1987. They also trained 1,300 scientists and
sup****t staff to revitalize the country's agricultural system. And the
new high-yielding rice varieties allowed farmers to produce more on
less land.
Today, experts say, Cambodia's yields have risen from 1.35 tons per
hectare to 2.5 tons per hectare. It produces enough to ex****t =96 more
than a million tons this year =96 but recently imposed ex****t controls
to ensure it has enough for its own people.
Still, as Cambodia also illustrates, scientific advances will only
take rice production so far. Although Cambodia's yields have doubled
in the last 30 years, they are only almost half that of Thailand and
Laos (where better soil conditions, seed varieties, climate and
management make for higher outputs). Meanwhile, weeds here still cause
rice yield losses of up to 30 percent, and poor seed quality in some
areas means that 160,000 tons of rice rot every year, according to a
re****t by the IRRI.
"There are still many problems that need to be addressed =96 problems
from climate change and market changes," say Mr. Sarom.
Scientists also warn that the amount of land being farmed =96 especially
in the developing world =96 has not increased substantially in the last
two decades. Urban sprawl and industrial development continue to
compete for farmland.
"Even here in Thailand [the world's largest ex****ter of rice], even if
they wanted to, they can't produce more rice. There isn't much more
farmland, and the production level is also already pretty high," says
Paul Risley, a spokesman for the World Food Program in Thailand.
The recent global food crisis has sharply underlined that, despite the
Green Revolution's benefits, many countries are simply not able to
produce enough food for their exploding populations.
But even if the biggest production advances have already been
achieved, that doesn't mean scientists are giving up.
CARDI, continues to develop new varieties that can produce better
quality rice and withstand inclement weather. Sarom says research is
already pointing the way to higher rice yields. "In America and
Australia, you have yields of six to eight tons of rice per hectare.
Why not here? We still have the potential to increase productivity,"
he says.
That enthusiasm was echoed by the country's agriculture minister, Chan
Sarun, Tuesday when he said he expects Cambodia to produce enough rice
to ex****t some 8 million tons a year by 2015. That would make it one
of the world's top rice ex****ters.
And around the world, research still offers the promise of better
yields. For example, hybrid rice, a blend of three kinds of rice,
grows faster, is more disease resistant, and produces 20 percent
higher yields. Hybrids are only just starting to catch on: 800,000
hectares were planted in Asia outside of China between 2001-02, but
only 1,000 in Indonesia, for example, and only 20,000 in Bangladesh,
according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United
Nations (FAO). The expanded use of hybrids has particular promise for
food security, the FAO adds.
The current food crisis may be creating an investment environment for
a second Green Revolution, some analysts say. By averting massive
famine, the first Green Revolution helped create an impression among
world leaders that investments in agriculture were no longer as vital.
Many countries stopped spending on agricultural development. That may
be starting to change as Malaysia, the Philippines, and China have in
recent weeks announced plans to boost investment in agriculture.
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