THE MEETING OF THE IRC STEERING COMMITTEE,
Held at FAO, Rome, Italy, 19/3/1999
APPROVAL OF THE PUBLICATION OF IRC NEWSLETTER, VOLUME NO. 48 (1999)
THE ROLE OF RICE IN THE SPECIAL PROGRAMME FOR FOOD SECURITY
Mr. Duwayri, Chairman of the Steering Committee, opened the meeting and welcomed the participants to the Meeting. The Chairman expressed his gratitude to all the Meeting Members for their active participation in the rice development activities at FAO and the work of the International Rice Commission. Before discussing the items of the agenda, the Chairman introduced Mr. Maluszynski, representinged FAO/IAEA (AGE), as a new Member of the Steering Committee. He stressed the importance of the participation of AGE in the IRC as it works closely with Members Countries of FAO on the application of mutation and other biotechnological tools for rice varietal improvement. He also introduced Messieurs, Timon representing Mr. Eckebil, SDRR; Qamar, SDRE; Martinez, FIRI; Tampieri, ESSB. He also welcomed Mr. Kobakiwal, TCOS to the Meeting.
The Chairman informed the participants on the cancellation of the Rice Project in the biennium 2000-2201, which was recommended by the last Meeting of the Steering Committee held in December 1998, due to constraints related to the rigidity of the present PLANSYS. Mr. Duwayrie, however, added that the cross departmental collaboration in rice activities is important for alleviating world hunger, as rice is the most important food crop of the world. He recommended the members of the Steering Committee of the IRC to give priority to the preparation of the cross departmental/divisional Rice Project in the next biennium.
Mr. Kobakiwal informed the participants that rice is a major crop in the activities of the Special Programme for Food Security. Mr. Tran, likewise, informed the participants that AGLW, AGSI, AGSE, ESCB, and FIRI have expressed support to the creation of a cross departmental/divisional Rice Project under the IRC for promoting the coordination of rice activities at FAO.
The proposed agenda for the meeting was adopted by all participants.
APPROVAL OF THE PUBLICATION OF IRC NEWSLETTER, VOLUME NO. 48 (1999)
The Content of the IRC Newsletters Vol. 48 (1999), proposed by the Secretariat of the IRC, was approved by the participants. However, the Meeting recommended the following measures in order to improve the Content of the Newsletters Vol. 48:
Strengthening the peer review: Mr. Maluszynski, representing FAO/IAEA, was requested to review the paper on Reflections on Yield Gaps in Rice Production by M. Duwayri, D. V. Tran and V. N. Nguyen;
Mr. Roy, AGLN, was requested to either review the Book Review on Fertilization of Rice in Japan, or to provide another Book Review on Rice Nutrient Management;
Ms. Calpe/Mr. Mbabaali, ESCB, were requested to provide a summary of the IGR meeting.
With regard to the proposal of increasing the frequency of the publication of the IRC Newsletters, the participants were informed that, due to budgetary constraints, the publication of the IRC Newsletters has to be limited to one volume per year retroactive to 1988. At present, the cost of publishing a Volume of the IRC Newsletter is about US$ 20,000 owing to the high costs of translating into English, French, and Spanish, which are the official languages of the Commission. The Meeting recommended the Secretariat to investigate the possibility of utilising external translators so as toreduce costs. It also suggested the publication of selected articles in future volumes of the Newsletters, in the original language, as submitted by the author (or authors), via the FAO Website in order to improve the dissemination of information.
The participants of the Meeting considered the publication of IRC Newsletters an essential activity in serving Member Countries of FAO. There are about 1,200 subscribers of the IRC Newsletters, including development officers, senior extension officers and researchers of rice programmes in Member Countries of FAO, Offices of the FAO Representatives world-wide, International Agricultural Research Centres, NGOs, and Agricultural Universities.
The participants of the Meeting also agreed that the date of the publication of the IRC Newsletters Vol. 48 will be in September 1999, and the deadline for submission of contributions to Volume 48, from Members of the Steering Committee, has been set at 30 May 1999.
PRESENTATION OF RICE ACTIVITIES AND RELATED MATTERS IN 1999 AND 2000-2001 FROM THE IRC COMMITTEE’S MEMBERS
The activities, results, and planned activities for the biennium, and beyond, at AGPC, AGPS, FAO/IAEA, AGSI, ESCB, and AGLN were, respectively, presented by Messieurs Tran, Nguyen, Larinde, Maluszynski, Mejia, Mbabaali, and Roy. The participants approved the activities submitted by the respective Services.
The main activities during 1999-2001 period at AGPC include:
Preparation and publication of the Proceedings of the 19th Session of the IRC;
Preparation and publication of the IRC Newsletters Vols. 48, 49 and 50;
Organisation of Meetings of the IRC Steering Committee;
Support to the MED-Rice Network in the organizationorganisation of regional workshops on rice improvement and technology development in Romania in 1999 and in Russia in 2000; support to GRUTHA in the organizationorganisation of the workshop on hybrid rice, recurrent breeding and rice biotechnology activities in Brazil in 1999;
Promotion of the development and use of hybrid rice in Asia, in collaboration with IRRI and under the framework of INTAFOHR, and the ADB-funded project;
Support to the training on hybrid rice in Asia and Latin America and on high- yielding technology in Egypt for the Sahel countries of Africa;
Cooperation with WARDA and SPFS to promotein promotion of the test and demonstration of new plant types and databases on promising rice varieties and crop management packages under various agro-ecologies in West Africa;
Support to the Development and Use of Inland Swamps for Rice-Based Food Production Systems in Africa (WEDEM/IVS);
Study on Yield Evolution of Rice in East Africa (Madagascar and Mozambique);
Organisation of Global Expert Consultation on Yield Gaps and Productivity Decline of Rice to be held in Rome in 2000;
Support to the Development of Integrated Crop Management by NARS and the Development of Rapid Straw Decomposition at ICRISAT;
Development, updating, and dissemination of rice databases and rice Web pages.
The Plant Breeding and Genetics Section, of the Joint FAO/IAEA Division and the Plant Breeding Unit of the FAO/IAEA Agriculture and Biotechnology Laboratory, have carried out rice improvement, through induced mutations and related biotechnologies. The majors projects include:
Molecular characterisation of mutated genes controlling important traits for seed crop improvement with the participation of Brazil, China P.R., India, Korea Rep., Thailand, Viet Nam, Japan, UK, USA, IRRI (CRP);
Mutational analysis of root characters in annual food plants related to plant performance (CRP);
Evaluation of Cereal Crop Mutants in Latin America (TC);
Mutational enhancement of genetic diversity in rice in Asia (IAEA funded);
The Plant Breeding Unit has also conducted the development of haploid system in indica rice for mutation and transformation and salinity tolerance.
AGPS will continue to participate in the development and transfer of seed production technology for hybrid rice. The participants recommended the strengthening of the activities on development and transfer of hybrid rice technology. SDRE expressed its willingness to participate in the activities concerning the development and transfer of hybrid rice technologies, which have been carried out by AGPC and AGPS, even on its own budget.
The major activities of AGSI include the electronic conference on post- harvest technologies and problems deriving therefrom and the development of a model to study the effect of the adoption of HYVs, including rice, on post-harvest operations. The participants of the Meeting appreciated the work on the effects of the introduction of HYVs on the post-harvest activities which have not been studied by the IARCs, but recommended that the model for estimating labour costs, equipment and resources of various activities needs to be validated at country level.
The participants were informed by AGLN on the efficiency of urea tablets in rice production and noted the need for the development of a simple tool for the deep-placement of urea tablets in irrigated and lowland rice production. They also recommended a close collaboration among concerned technical units, especially, AGLN, AGLS, AGSE, and AGPC on the test and transfer of technologies for efficient nitrogen use, under the framework of Integrated Crop Management which is being tested AGPC in collaboration with selected NARS and IARCs. It was recommended that AGLN lead this activity.
The participants were informed by ESCB that a rice information exchange was about to be launched by this Service through a rice network system via Internet. They were also briefed about the nature of the international rice market, which is small and therefore easy to change and of the recent improvement in rice production world-wide. However, the participants observed that there is a continued need to improve the productivity of rice production in order to assure a stable supply of rice and, at the same time, to save land for diversification of the production systems, thus improving farmers' incomes and alleviating poverty. In Asia, the annual growth rate of rice production is stagnant, if not declining, while the population has increased. This situation has forced some Asian countries to import rice, especially Indonesia and Philippines, which had reached self-sufficiency.
THE ROLE OF RICE IN THE SPECIAL PROGRAMME FOR FOOD SECURITY
Mr. Kobakiwal submitted information regarding the current status of the Special Programme for Food Security. He explained that the Special Programme for Food Security is operating in 39 countries and is being formulated in another 30 countries. Information on SPFS is available at the Web site of FAO. The participants were informed that activities on urban and peri-urban agriculture, as well as the monitoring and evaluation, will be strengthened in SPFS.
The "Role of Rice in the Special Programme for Food Security" and AGP's contribution to SPFS were presented by Mr. Bae, AGPC. Activities on rice development have been a major component of the SPFS in 20 countries or more than 50% of the total countries where SPFS has been operational.
In Africa, the 12 countries having rice activities in SPFS produced about 8 million tons of rice in 1997, or 50.4% of Africa's total rice production. In the same year, the 5 Asian countries having rice activities in SPFS produced 237 million tons of rice, or 45 % of the total Asian rice production. Yields and benefits from rice production were substantially increased with the adoption of the technological packages used in the demonstration under SPFS. However, for a more effective adoption of the demonstrated packages of improved technologies, it was suggested that improvement should be made with regard to rural infrastructure development, input supply and credit availability; finally the training of farmers on both rice production and organisation should be enhanced. It is also very important that the governmental policies regarding agricultural development should be clearly defined and adequate resources should be allocated to support the activities identified in the policies.
Due to the time limitation, the participants decided to postpone the presentation on "Progress in the Rice information system and cooperation" to the next Meeting of the Steering Committee. However, Mr. Nguyen was requested to provide information on this matter to other Members of the Steering Committee, if requested.
The participants were provided with copies of the OM related to the Varietal Registration under the Commission on Poplar and requested to discuss the possibility of having a Rice Varietal Registration under the IRC. Initially, the participants noted that several thousand rice varieties have been developed by NARS and IARCs world-wide compared to only a few hundred Poplar varieties. This will render the registration of rice varieties very complicated.
Also, the participants noted that the legal aspects, concerning the rights of rice breeders, have not been settled. The participants of the Meeting agreed that national programmes, or their breeders, should have the right to improved rice varieties, including the right of receiving or distributing information on seeds, regardless if the new varieties were developed with or without the financial and technical support from FAO. However, it was agreed that, if provided by NARSc and IARCs, IRC could include the publication of information on recently released rice varieties and their characteristics in IRC Newsletters ,or a special publication, in order to promote the exchange and utilisation of rice germplasm. Further discussion on this matter is needed.