GRAIN | Resources | Hybrid rice

China's utopian quest for the rice crop suffered a couple of blows recently. A new rice virus disease – called Southern Rice Black Streak Dwarf Virus (SRBSDV) transmitted by the white back planthopper (WBPH) – was reportedly spreading across China, covering 300,000 ha of rice land in nine provinces. Recent data from a survey conducted by Professor Guo-Hui Zhou of the South China Agricultural University point to increased infection rates in the provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan, with hybrid rice varieties being more seriously affected. The disease has been prevalent that it reached neighbouring Vietnam as well, infecting about 15,000 ha of ricelands and covering 19 provinces. Interestingly, this new disease has been found to also infect maize and sorghum, also major crops in China.

Just as this was unfolding, new incidences of GM rice contamination were brought into the open. The Economic Observer reported new cases of illegal sales of GM rice seeds in several parts of China. In Hunan, about 1,500 kilograms of suspected GM seeds were discovered in three villages close to the city of Yueyang, 150km north of provincial capital, Changsha. At least five kinds of suspected GM rice seeds were also found in Changde city, supposedly from neighboring Hubei.

Greenpeace has discovered at least four brands of rice and three brands of rice flour from Hubei, Hunan and Fujian found to contain GM ingredients, from July 2009 to February 2010.

Typically, after receiving a safety certificate, one still needs a seed production license and a seed sales license from the government. In other words, having a safety certificate does not automatically grant one the right to commercialise it. But since receiving its safety certificate, with validity until 2014, the Huazhong Agricultural University has been reportedly urging the central government to commercialize GM rice.

The three manufacturers of GM rice seeds are Wuhan Huihua Sannong Seed Company, Wuhan Dunhuang Seed Company and Wuhan Jiuhuan Seed Company. Wuhan Dunhuang is a subsidiary of Dunhuang Seed Co Ltd, with a registered capital of 30 million yuan (US$ 4.4 million). On the other hand, Wuhan Huihua Sannong was co-founded by the Hong Kong-based Waikee Group and Huazhong Agricultural University (the only one that holds the safety certificate of GM rice seeds issued by China's Ministry of Agriculture). The university holds 30 percent of the shares of Wuhan Huihua Sannong.

The Department of Agriculture's (DA) own Bureau of Agricultural Statistics revealed that yields of hybrid rice from 2008-2009 averaged only 5.58 metric tons (MT) per hectare. A far cry from what chief of the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA) rice program, Frisco Malabanan, claims that “hybrid rice achieves greater yields and thus farmers earn more without increasing their cultivation area.” Malabanan said that farmers could harvest as much as 12 MT from hybrid rice and enjoy a profit increase of at least P30,000 (US$ 650) per hectare

Despite the DA's own data contradicting his claim, the rice program chief is undeterred. In fact, he will be seeking an additional P500 million (US$ 10.7 M) as funding support for its ongoing hybrid-rice project so that it continues until 2011. This is on top of the P3 billion (US$ 64.4 M) earmarked for the GMA rice program for this year, to subsidise seeds of 860,000 farmer-beneficiaries and training of 373,290 farmers and extension workers.

The new Secretary of Agriculture, Proceso Alcala, seems likely to continue with the DA's hybrid rice programme. He has been vocal about how, under his leadership, the DA “intends to intensify rice production and provide farmers all the necessary support such as postharvest facilities, to ensure the country achieves its goal of rice self-sufficiency in three years.”

Farmers and public interest groups are wary of this. In a statement, the Rice Watch and Action Network (RWAN) has urged President Benigno Aquino and Agriculture Secretary Alcala to scrap subsidies for hybrid rice and investigate corruption charges involved in the seed subsidy program.

“We appeal to the new administration to evaluate the current strategies of the DA to achieve the self-sufficiency targets with Frisco Malabanan, the current director of the Rice Program [who is setting] his eyes anew on subsidizing hybrid rice technology despite its failure to sustain rice productivity,” implores the group. According to RWAN, the DA has been consistently unsuccessful with its targets in the past years, capped by the 8.7-percent production shortfall in 2009.

“Despite a whopping P10-billion (US$ 215 M) allotment for the Department’s Rice Program and P17.5 billion (US$ 376 M) for irrigation, the overall production reached 16.3 million metric tons only in 2009,” according to the group. That's 1.5 million MT short of the target 17.8 million metric tons last year.

The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, Peasant Movement of the Philippines) on the other hand sees the continuation of the hybrid rice programme as part of a larger agenda. “This is a move to offset the anticipated massive landgrabbing, displacement of farmers and land-use conversion of the country’s prime agricultural lands devoted to rice production,” according to the group.

“We know that this is a complicated issue, thus, should not be treated as plain plus or minus equals something. Rice production is not an economic issue but more of a socio-political and economic issue that actually hounded the country for more than centuries,” Danilo Ramos, KMP Secretary-General said in a press statement.

Meanwhile, SL agritech, the company behind SLH8 hybrid variety that failed to produce grain in parts of Nueva Ecija province last year, announced that it has shipped its first export of hybrid seeds to Vietnam. Ironically, Vietnam's rice farmers are already facing difficulties because of faulty hybrid seeds. The popular variety Nhi uu 838 was a total failure a couple of months back. A new viral disease called Southern Rice Black Streak Dwarf Virus (SRBSDV) transmitted by the white back planthopper (WBPH) has also infected at least 15,000 ha of the country's ricelands covering 19 provinces, mostly infecting fields of hybrid rice.

SL Agritech also exports hybrid rice seeds to other countries such as Indonesia, Bangladesh. Recently, the company entered into an agreement with the Bangladesh Agricultural Department Corp. (BADC) making Bangladesh its newest hybrid rice seed production site, expanding its 250-hectare site to a minimum of 600 hectares. In Indonesia, SL Agritech has 1,700 hectares for hybrid rice seed production expanding to 3,000 hectares by next year.

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[Oryza-hybrida] - is a blog written by GRAIN that tracks down the global push for hybrid rice. Its purpose is to report on new developments happening around the corporate landscape, as well as in various hybrid rice growing countries across the world, with particular emphasis on farmers' experience with hybrid rice. It is a strictly non-commercial and educational service for researchers, activists, NGOs and farmers' organisations active in the fight against corporate control of rice (research, seeds, technology).

A web version is online at www.grain.org/hybridrice/ where links to key documents on hybrid rice are also available for download.

The full archive is available at www.grain.org/hybridrice/?blogarchive

ABOUT US -- GRAIN is a small international NGO working to strengthen farmers' control over agricultural biodiversity and local knowledge, particularly in developing countries. For more information about GRAIN, please visit www.grain.org.

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Hundreds of farming households in the central province of Binh Dinh are experiencing hardships, as the Nhi uu 838 hybrid rice seeds, sowed for winter-spring harvest, have not sprouted.

Ngo Thi Kim Anh, of the Trung Dinh village and Nhon An commune, said she had to buy new rice seeds from several places three days ago in order to sprout the roots before sowing.

The hybrid cultivar Nhi uu 838 rice seeds that she bought at An Nhon District’s Economic Department did not sprout, so she plans to return them to the department.

Anh said her family has just 720 square meters to cultivate rice with two crops per year, so she has to choose rice seeds with the highest output. However, when it came time to sow them on May 25, all eight kilograms of rice seeds had failed to sprout and smelled sour like vinegar, Anh said.

Chau Thi Hong Loan, from the Thuan Thai village, said most farming families have used the Nhi uu 838 rice seed for many years but this time they have forced us into a difficult situation.

The hybrid seeds cost VND25,000 (US$1.3) per kilogram, although farmers have to pay just VND15,000 (US$0.8) per kilogram, with remainder paid for by the An Nhon District.

Loan said to fill her 1,800 square meters of rice field, she bought 12 kilograms of seed for VND180,000 ($9.4). However, the entire crop failed to sprout, causing her great distress.

Confronted with situation of bad rice seeds, Bui Van Cu, Chairman of Nhon An Commune People’s Committee, said that the number of farmers using hybrid rice seed Nhi uu 838 has increased, so the commune bought 3.3 tons of the rice seed from the An Nhon District.

Commune authorities do not know why the rice seeds did not sprout, so commune cadres have to help farmers to find new rice seeds to avoid using rice for sowing.

It is not the first time the Nhi uu 838 hybrid has not sprouted. In the Summer- Spring 2008, hundreds of farmers of the Nhon Loc and Nhon Phuc communes returned rice seeds to Viet Hoa Investment and Development Co.Ltd for this same failure.

Le Dinh An, a cadre of encouraging agricultural expansion in the Nhon An commune, admitted the Nhi uu 838 rice seed not sprout. The commune is checking the rice seeds to make measures to resolve the issue and compensate to farmers, said An.

On 12 April 2010, close to 1000 farmers from different parts of the Philippines, joined with representatives of farmers organisations from other Asian countries such as Cambodia, India, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan and Vietnam, to gather at the main gate of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Banos, Laguna (Philippines). Inside, IRRI celebrated its 50th anniversary, while outside these farmers were calling, once and for all, for IRRI's abolition. Another 2000 farmers in Bacolod City and North Cotabato, in central and southern Philippines respectively, did parallel rallies in solidarity with those in Los Banos. Through phone messaging, they shared with the protesters at the IRRI gate their firm resolve that IRRI's 50th year should be its last.

“What is golden with IRRI's golden anniversary? The Philippines is the world's top rice importer now,” according to Congressman Rafael Mariano, Anakpawis party list representative, who took the blazing afternoon sun to join the farmers.

As expected, none from IRRI's top management came out. Here was an Institute that claims to feed half of the world's population, yet it couldn't face these poor farmers who spoke about the three million people who have already died of hunger since the start of this year, while 1.23 billion suffer from malnutrition. Here was an Institute that proclaims to be the home of the Green Revolution in Asia, yet it couldn't afford to hear the real accounting of how its programmes have wreaked havoc on farmers' fields across the region. Here was an Institute that vows to improve the health of rice farmers and ensure that rice production is environmentally sustainable, yet it refuses to acknowledge the casualties of its chemically-laden rice research operations. Several former field workers of IRRI died over the years from their exposure to hazardous chemicals while others, who were in the protest, continue to suffer from pesticide-related symptoms. Had anyone from IRRI's management or trustees come out, they would have heard from several organisations in Asia that pesticide poisoning remains rampant among rice farmers who plant IRRI-developed varieties.

“The land that now houses IRRI were acquired from us farmers who were promised employment at IRRI, which has tenure that could be passed on to our children. What IRRI did however was terminate us even before we could get to our retirment. Some of us have already died from pesticide-related illnesses, and not one of our children could even find employment at IRRI. IRRI is a liar and we should get rid of it,” according to one former IRRI field-worker who were among those whose lands were acquired by the University of the Philippines (UP) for the use of IRRI back in the late 1950s.

“IRRI is like a broker for large TNCs (transnational corporations). It was used as an intrument to promote the notion that pesticides are necessary for farmers to grow rice. But as a result, this has caused many forms of illnesses on the liver, kidney, brain, among farmers, and even still births. We have to put a stop to this,” says Dr Romy Quijano, a toxicologist from UP.

“We do not believe that IRRI's rice research is for a better world. What IRRI is doing is rice science for a bitter world, for a corporate world, for TNCs world,” according to Anakpawis' Mariano.

IRRI should understand that the action in front of their gate was not merely about closing IRRI. The farmers had no illusions that IRRI would voluntarily heed their call. But April 12th was historic nonetheless. It was a day for farmers from across Asia to make it clear that, for them, IRRI has lost whatever legitimacy it once had in rice research and farming. As the farmers said very emphatically: 50 years is enough. It was not a gentle request for IRRI to close shop. It was an indictment on IRRI's future.

“IRRI is the enemy of the Asia's peasants. We want it out of the Philippines or anywhere in Asia. We want IRRI out now because it has done nothing for the people. IRRI is useless,” according to Erpan Faryadi of Alliance of Agrarian Reform Movement in Indonesia.

Scientists with the Indonesian Centre for Food Crops Research and Development are reporting an alarming increase in infestations of brown planthoppers in the province of West Java. Writing on the Ricehoppers blog, plant pathologist, Muhammad Muhsin, says that the area under attack this year increased from 450 ha in February to around 10,000 ha in March, and that two associated virus diseases, rice ragged stunt and rice grassy stunt, are also increasing. Not coincidentally, the areas under attack (Karawang, Subang, Indramayu and Cirebon) are main areas of hybrid rice production.

Muhsin points out that 200 ha of hybrid rice fields in Subang belonging to the national seed company, PT Sang Hyang Seri, were completely devastated by a brown planthopper outbreak. Sang Hyang is developing hybrid rice through a partnership with Devgen, a Belgian multinational seed company partly owned by Monsanto

BPH and hopperburn in rice hybrid seed company Sang Hyang Seri (SHS) Subang (Photo: ICFCRD)

According to Indonesia's Ministry of Agriculture, 650,000 ha were planted with hybrid rice in 2009, and the government plans to increase this area every year, with a goal of 1,000,000 ha by 2015.

Dr. Kasumbogo Untung, Professor in Entomology at the Agriculture Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, worries about what the government's aggressive programme to promote hybrid rice will mean for farmers, the environment and the country's rice supply. Dr. Untung is the most senior entomologist in Indonesia involved in the development of Integrated Pest Management (IPM).

"The average yield of hybrid rice is not significantly higher and in some areas yield failures are a regular occurrence," says Dr. Untung. "As the hybrid rice area increases, the incidence of brown planthoppers, ragged stunt virus and other rice pest and diseases will go up dramatically and I am very concerned about the amount of chemical pesticides that will be released in our environment."

For Dr. Untung the overall costs of hybrid rice- economic, environmental and social- are higher and more detrimental than any benefits it may provide.

"Certainly the sustainability of our rice self sufficiency will be threatened," he adds.