ALABANG, Philippines—Cultivating climate-smart rice varieties in unfavorable
environments could boost local rice production, says Edilberto de Luna,
Philippine agriculture assistant secretary for operations (photo left). De Luna
said this during a meeting with rice department heads and scientists from 10
Asian countries on rainfed rice farming areas that often experience low
productivity, poverty, and hunger.
The discussion took part during the 15th Annual Steering
Committee Meeting of the Consortium for Unfavorable Rice Environments (CURE),
24-26 May. Funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD),
CURE, a “network of networks,” focuses on rice farming systems where low and
unstable yields are common and extensive poverty and food security
prevail.
Climate-smart rice can withstand the ill effects of
drought, flooding, and salinity that pose great threats to rainfed rice
areas.
 The contribution of these varieties to the country's food
security is even more crucial because the Philippines is one of the countries
most vulnerable to climate change, according to Dr. Calixto Protacio, executive
director of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice). “To date, the
Philippines, a member country of CURE, has released 19 drought-tolerant rice
varieties for the rainfed lowlands, four for the uplands, and 15 for
saline-prone environments.”
Aside from being more resilient, climate-smart rice
varieties have other outstanding qualities.
“The recently released drought-tolerant rice variety, NSIC
Rc282, yielded up to 7.9 tons per hectare during the 2016 dry season in an
on-farm trial in Cuyapon, Nueva Ecija,” said Dr. Aurora Corales, supervising
science research specialist at PhilRice. Farmers also liked NSIC Rc282 because
it has more tillers, long panicles, and less grain shattering.”
De Luna said that the government will ensure the
availability of seeds of climate-smart rice varieties and will promote their use
in less favorable areas through informal seed systems such as community seed
banks.
Lakbay Binhi is another way of making these
climate-smart varieties more accessible to farmers, according to Protacio.
Lakbay Binhi (traveling seeds) is a project that brings high-quality
seeds to Filipino farmers through mobile seed centers. It was pilot-tested at
three sites affected by Typhoon Lando (Koppu).
“The adoption of technologies in the country is more of a bottom-up approach,” said Dr. Digna Manzanilla, IRRI social scientist and CURE coordinator (photo at left). “CURE involves potential or actual seed growers within the community to ensure good seed supply. Agricultural technicians conduct village-level demonstration trials and technologies are learned from one farmer to another.” CURE is also helping 100 million farm households dependent
on rice in unfavorable environments in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Indonesia, Thailand,
Vietnam, Myanmar, India, Bangladesh, and Nepal.
“Indeed, CURE provides an integrated platform to help the
poor farmers in unfavorable rice areas in Asia by creating, validating,
disseminating, and adopting new rice technologies for adverse environments,”
said Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala. “Undeniably, the platform has become
a beacon of hope for resolving key problems in rice farming systems through
strengthened partnership among the national agricultural research and extension
staff, IRRI researchers, farmers, and extension workers.
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