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VIEWPOINT
Rice
Of The Future
Exciting
times for rice research but new varieties are still some years away
By
Jairam Ramesh
 Two
significant developments took place recently concerning our staple food,
rice. On January 19, the Manila-based International Rice Research Institute
(IRRI) received the first research samples of "golden rice"
from the scientists and companies who had originally developed it. Second,
on January 26, two private companies from Switzerland and the US unveiled
the complete map of the rice genome. New varieties are, however, at least
five years away.
Golden rice
is genetically modified rice invented by two scientists-Ingo Potrykus,
a Swiss, and Peter Beyer, a German. Although it provides about a third
of our daily calorie intake, normal rice is low in vitamin content. Through
modern genetic engineering techniques, Potrykus and Beyer have incorporated
three new alien genes into the conventional rice plant-two from daffodils
and another from the earth bacterium Erwinia. The colour of this transgenic
seed is yellow-hence, the name golden rice. It contains beta-carotene
and other carotenoids which break down into Vitamin A.
 Vitamin
A deficiency causes blindness and is endemic among pre-school children
in the poorer regions of India. We do have a national programme whereby
infants in the nine-36 months age group are to be provided with massive
Vitamin A doses. But actual coverage, particularly for follow-up doses,
is low.
IRRI, which
is a publicly funded laboratory, will now mount a global effort to further
investigate golden rice, using local rice varieties. Remarkably, a Humanitarian
Board chaired by Potrykus has been set up to further the application.
This points to how public-private partnerships in biotechnology can be
structured. IRRI has a strong India connection-it was headed by none other
than M.S. Swaminathan himself during 1982-88 and for the past three decades
its top breeder has been the legendary Gurdev Khush. Incidentally, the
world's leading wheat and maize breeders are Sanjaya Rajaram and Surinder
Vassal at IRRI's sister laboratory CIMMYT in Mexico, from where we got
the wheat seeds in the mid-1960s to launch our Green Revolution.
Although
the genetic code of rice has been sequenced, the exact function of each
gene is not known. The next step is to determine what each of these 50,000
genes do. It would then be possible, for example, to develop new rice
varieties tolerant to drought. IRRI is establishing a global network for
functional genomics research and Khush believes India should play a leadership
role in this network.
Over half
the births in India are of markedly underweight babies brought about by
maternal malnutrition aggravated by iron deficiency. In January 1999,
five Japanese scientists reported the development of a transgenic rice
based on the transfer of the soyabean ferritin gene. This transgenic rice
contains two to four times the iron normally found in rice. Since anaemia
is widely prevalent among pregnant and lactating women in our country,
iron-fortified rice is of special significance to us.
A third
new transgenic rice variety is called Bt rice. This is rice that produces
a protein toxic to insects and pests by the injection of a gene from the
microorganism Bacillus thuringiensis. In 1915, a scientist had isolated
this toxin from a dead moth in the German region of Thuringen-hence the
name of the bacterium. Bt rice is still in its infancy unlike Bt cotton
which has taken major strides. About a third of the cotton area in the
US is under Bt cotton. In India small field trials are on. Bt cotton is
of great importance because the cotton crop now consumes about 60 per
cent of all chemical pesticides used.
Way back
in 1954, two scientists at the Cuttack-based Central Rice Research Institute,
S. Sampath and H.K. Mohanty, were the first to draw attention to the possibility
of developing hybrids involving two separate parental lines for a self-pollinated
crop like rice. But it was China that surged ahead. Around 40-45 per cent
of China's rice area is under hybrid varieties. India too has been experimenting
with hybrid rice. A. Janaiah of IRRI, who has been studying the socio-economics
of hybrid rice, believes that while hybrid rice gives higher yields of
at least 15-20 per cent over high-yielding varieties, it results in lower
profitability. This is because of three main reasons: lower market prices
on account of poor grain quality and higher risks of pests and diseases.
While we
keep abreast of the latest in rice science, there are many immediate production
challenges. As Swaminathan has pointed out recently, Punjab must diversify
from rice to agro-forestry, fodder crops, quality protein maize and legumes.
In arid regions, low-yielding rice has to give way to other lucrative
opportunities like tree crops. Eastern India has to see a fuller development
of its substantial groundwater resources. Finally, there are big yield
gaps-between potential and actual-that need to be bridged.
The author
is with the Congress party. These are his personal views.
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