THE largest collection of rice varieties in the world has secured indefinite funding in what officials say will be crucial for the development of seeds resilient to the effects of climate change.
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) was set to sign an agreement with the Bonn-based nonprofit Crop Trust on Tuesday in Singapore to secure $1.4 million per year to fund its rice gene bank in Los Baños, Laguna in the Philippines.
“It is really important to the future of food security,” IRRI director-general Matthew Morell told Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Within those rice varieties are genetics that will allow us to preserve the ability to produce rice in the face of climate change.”
About 3 billion people – mostly in Asia – depend on rice as a staple. But as the world population increases, farmers are struggling to meet rising demand while crops suffer from extreme weather conditions linked to climate change.
By 2050 annual global rice consumption is projected by IRRI to rise from 450 million metric tons to 525 million metric tons.
The IRRI was established in 1960 and one of its first activities was to collect rice varieties from around Southeast Asia and South Asia.
The institute conserves and shares 136,000 rice varieties with farmers, breeders and scientists, said Crop Trust executive director Marie Haga.
Crop Trust is building an endowment fund, currently at $300 million, and hopes to eventually secure $850 million to provide permanent funding for the IRRI’s rice bank, one of the most important agricultural gene banks in the world, said Haga.
Most of Crop Trust’s funding comes from governments, and as the endowment fund grows, it will increase the number of crop collections it funds.
“The most important threat to food security is that the climate changes faster than plants are able to adapt,” Haga told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “That’s why we need to help them, and we can do that by natural breeding.”
Scientists at IRRI have used rice stored in the bank to develop varieties that can withstand drought and flooding, which are already threatening production in countries like India, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Cambodia.
A main focus, Morell said, is developing varieties that are more resistant to high temperatures, and more frequent droughts and floods from rain as well as the ocean.
“In Asia we have areas which grow rice along coastal zones, where typhoons bring sea water into the rice fields, so those genetics for salinity resistance is important,” he said. (Thomson Reuters Foundation)
