World Radio Switzerland
http://www.worldradio.ch/wrs/news/switzerland/rice-farmers-battle-to-sustain-yields.shtml?10998Rice farmers struggle to sustain yields
Soaring prices for foodstuffs such as rice, corn and wheat, have dominated the headlines in recent weeks. The price of rice, for example, a staple in the diets of nearly half the world’s population, has doubled on international markets. Besides the immediate humanitarian needs, the international community is having to rethink its development priorities to help farmers in developing countries meet the world‘s growing food demand. WRS’s Vincent Landon has been in Laos where 85 per cent of the population are reckoned to be subsistence rice farmers and has this report.
Villagers are threshing rice in Luang Prabang province in northern Laos. Rice is the fabric of life here, says agronomist Ben Samson from the International Rice Research Institute or IRRI.
SAMSON: Rice is central to the lives of the Laos people. Over here when people greet each other, they ask the question: Have you eaten rice today. And that‘s an expression of how central rice is to their lives and to their culture.
Just how much rice is grown in Laos is an open question. The target for rice production this year is 2.95 million tonnes. But Food and Agriculture Organisation representative Serge Verniau says there are no reliable figures.
VERNIAU: How much the country produces, how much is exported, nobody knows. How much is available in the warehouses, nobody knows. What are the post-harvest losses, nobody knows.
Between 1990 and 2005, there does appear to have been a significant increase in rice production thanks to work carried out by IRRI and supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. By introducing better varieties, farmers in many lowland areas were able to increase production.
The deputy head of Houay Khot village says that with the traditional variety they used to get a yield of about two tonnes per hectare and now with new varieties, they can get a yield of about four tonnes. They can sell the surplus and use the money to support their children to go to school.
But in the uplands of Laos, the situation is very different. Population density and government policy is putting pressure on traditional slash and burn agriculture. And rice yields are declining because the ground is not being left fallow long enough, says Ben Samson.
SAMSON: The area where we are going into used to be extensive rice land last year. This year, they have rubber growing on it and they also have maize and other crops growing in it now.
LANDON: What are the implications of this?
SAMSON: What that means is that farmers have to go elsewhere further away from their villages to grow rice for their own consumption. So it means if they were not buying rice from the market, they would still have to raise rice locally and that means they would have to open up new forest lands.
Ben Samson is acutely conscious of what can happen when a country sacrifices self-sufficiency in food. He says his own country the Philippines ignored warnings when rice lands were transformed into industrial parks and residential areas.
SAMSON: Instead of maintaining our investments in agriculture, investments were diverted into building infrastructures and supporting industry which was perceived to be the way of the future for the Philippines. Now we have this problem of shortages in rice supply and major increases in prices, so we are going through difficult times in the Philippines now.
Serge Verniau echoes this view. He says we neglected the world‘s small farmers in the past and now we are paying the price for that mistake. As for Laos, he say it is not too late to avert a disaster but massive investments in mining, hydro power and the agro industry could put the country at risk if foreign investors don‘t follow international codes of conduct and pay attention to the social and environmental impact.
