rice variety News
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44 New Rice Varieties in Asia and Africa
In 2013, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and its partners released 44 new and improved rice varieties, continuing the decades-long mission of using rice science to reduce hunger. Around half of the current global population—or about 3.5 billion people—relies on rice as a source of sustenance and livelihood. Resilience to climate change is a big thrust of IRRI’s ...
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Focus on Gender: women are more than agricultural victims
The editor of a recent UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report has concluded that smallholder farmers must be involved in biotechnology and innovation research to reduce poverty. In doing this, one challenge will be to include female farmers without resorting to tired, traditional gender assumptions that women are the victims in the context of agriculture. It is well reported that ...
By SciDev.Net
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Senator, nutrition experts support research on healthier rice
Rice is the largest part of the Filipino diet and healthier versions of the staple can go a long way in helping solve key health concerns, as well as improve public health in general. Philippine Senator Cynthia A. Villar made this statement today at the headquarters of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), affirming contributions made by rice scientists, in a keynote message during ...
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India takes to new flood-tolerant rice
A new flood-resistant rice variety developed at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines is proving to be popular in the flood-prone areas of India and Bangladesh. In India, since release in August 2009, more than 100,000 farmers have received seeds of the ‘Swarna-sub1’ variety and it is now being grown over 12 million hectares, the IRRI said in a press ...
By SciDev.Net
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28 new rice varieties released in 2014 as scientists ensure responsive breeding for the future
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and its partners released at least twenty-eight new rice varieties to governments of eight countries in Asia and Africa in 2014. These newly-released varieties possess high-yielding and stress-tolerance traits that can help farmers overcome challenges, such as the negative effects of climate change, in their rice growing ecosystems. Some of the ...
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Philippines: IRRI conducts training in ORYZA 3 rice modeling tool for advanced applications in rice research
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Training Center held a training program for the use of the ORYZA 3 rice modeling tool for advanced application studies at IRRI Headquarters on 10-14 November. The training aims to improve and extend the skills of researchers in using ORYZA 3 for managing large scale simulations, climate change studies, evaluation of breeding lines, and crop ...
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Climate-Smart Rice Now Grown by 10 Million Farmers
About 10 million of the poorest and most disadvantaged rice farmers have been given access to climate-smart rice varieties, which includes flood-tolerant ones. “Swarna-Sub1 changed my life,” said Mr. Trilochan Parida, a farmer at the Dekheta Village of Puri in Odisha, India. Floods ravage Trilochan's rice field every year. Flooding of four days or more usually means a painful loss of ...
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Biohappiness key to future, says Swaminathan
The father of the Green Revolution in Asia and World Food Prize winner, M.S. Swaminathan, has launched a book on 'biohappiness'. In Search of Biohappiness maintains that true, long-term wellbeing can only be achieved by harnessing biodiversity to work for people in sustainable and equitable ways. "Biohappiness arises from the conversion of bioresources into jobs and income in an environmentally ...
By SciDev.Net
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Genetic makeup of thousands of rice varieties placed in global seed data pool
Genome sequences of more than 3,000 rice varieties have been placed with the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) by the world's leading rice research institute in a move boosting plans to set up a global data exchange system for crop genetic resources. The Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the Treaty (ITPGRFA) made ...
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Plan to boost African rice R&D unveiled
A research strategy to help boost rice production in Africa has been formally unveiled by the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice), a pan-African agricultural research organisation. The ten-year plan, launched this month (1 February) aims to help the continent become nearly 90 per cent self-sufficient in rice production by 2020, with at least ten countries expected to full meet their own needs. This ...
By SciDev.Net
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New App Involves Farmers in Investment Decisions in Rice Breeding
Investment Game Application (IGA), a new tablet app, helps farmers in South and Southeast Asia participate in an “investment market” for public rice breeding. By playing IGA, farmers reveal their preferences for the rice breeding products they most urgently need in order to improve their livelihoods. The app also helps them prioritize the traits they want in their rice varieties while ...
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New seeds of hope for Nepal’s farmers
Farmers badly affected by changing weather patterns in South Asia now have the opportunity to improve food security by planting new varieties of rice capable of withstanding the impact of both severe droughts and floods. This is particularly good news for countries such as Nepal, where around 65% of its more than 26 million people are involved in agriculture. Rice is the country’s most ...
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Upcoming IRRI young rice scientist to present research on association mapping of bacterial blight resistance at IRC2014
Christine Jade Dilla-Ermita of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has been selected as one of the 29 Young Rice Scientists (YRS) awardees who will present their research at the 4th International Rice Congress (IRC2014) in Bangkok, Thailand on 27 October-1 November 2014. “To share my research on the genome-wide association analysis of bacterial blight resistance before an ...
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PhilRice and IRRI Jointly Protect Elite Breeding Lines
Mutual protection of elite breeding lines marked a renewed collaboration between thePhilippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), signed at the PhilRice headquarters at the Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija, on 3 April 2014. Elite breeding lines are next-generation rice varieties that contribute to feeding half of the world’s ...
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Asia–Pacific Analysis: Launching a second Green Revolution
Feeding South-East Asia's rapidly growing population requires a second Green Revolution, says Crispin Maslog. The Day of Seven Billion was proclaimed by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) on 31 October 2011 as a historic milestone — the day the world's population reached seven billion people. And the world is on a steep growth curve for the rest of this century. More than half ...
By SciDev.Net
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Satellite data plus conservation equals better crop yields
Combining remote sensing technology with water and soil conservation techniques can help raise crop yields in South Asia, scientists have reported. Satellite data can help identify specific problems on farmlands such as moisture shortage, excessive soil wetness and flood occurrence. Using the data along with appropriate resource conserving technology (RCT) will increase productivity, a study ...
By SciDev.Net
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150th Harvest from World`s Longest-Running Continuous Rice Experiment
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is marking the 150th harvest of its Long-Term Continuous Cropping Experiment (LTCCE), the world's longest-running rice research project. This living field laboratory offers humanity a firsthand glimpse into the wonders of how rice production can be sustained in a changing climate without adversely affecting the soil and the productivity of a rice ...
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South Asia gets climate-smart learning platform
A new learning platform aims to facilitate the sharing of 'climate-smart' agriculture practices that address growing concerns about food security, climate change adaptation and mitigation in South Asia. The Climate Smart Agriculture Learning Platform for South Asia was launched last month (23 April) by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Research Program on ...
By SciDev.Net
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Basic food crops dangerously vulnerable
In the case of wheat, for instance, as a deadly new strain of Black Stem Rust devastates harvests across Africa and Arabia, and threatens the staple food supply of a billion people from Egypt to Pakistan, the areas where potentially crop and life-saving remnant wild wheat relatives grow are only minimally protected. “Our basic food plants have always been vulnerable to attack from new strains of ...
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Arcadia Biosciences and African Agricultural Technology Foundation collaborate on test planting of nitrogen use efficient rice
Arcadia Biosciences, Inc., an agricultural technology company focused on developing technologies and products that benefit the environment and human health, and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) today announced the planting of the first field trial of Nitrogen Use Efficient (NUE) rice in Africa. The NUE rice field trial is the result of more than five years of collaboration ...
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