Bayer CropScience joins the IRRI Hybrid Rice Development Consortium of the International Rice Research Institute

New effort to increase rice production comes at a crucial time for Asia. The region struggles to deal with record rice prices caused by stagnating yields.

Monheim - On April 4th, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Banos (Philippines) formally launched the Hybrid Rice Research and Development Consortium (HRDC). This HRDC is a new partnership between the public and private sectors aiming to increase rice production across Asia via the accelerated development and introduction of hybrid rice technologies.


Hybrid rice varieties have the potential to raise the yield of rice and thus overall rice productivity and profitability in Asia.

The HRDC will have two major objectives:

• Support research on developing new hybrids with enhanced yield heterosis, improved seed production, multiple resistances to stresses, and grain quality.
• Improve information sharing, public awareness, and capacity building.
  
  

  	Rice terraces in the Philippines

The HRDC inaugural meeting was attended by 19 founding private-sector company members from seven countries, including Bayer CropScience, and by 15 public sector institutions from China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam.

Frederic Arboucalot, Rice General Manager for Bayer CropScience BioScience, attended the HRDC inaugural meeting and commented: “This new effort to increase rice production thanks to the higher yields provided by hybrid rice comes at a crucial time for Asia as the region struggles to deal with near record rice prices caused by stagnating yields. It was obvious for Bayer CropScience, as a global leader in the development, production and sales of hybrid rice seeds to join this IRRI initiative”.

"This meeting represents the first pages of an entirely new chapter in the history of rice research", said Robert Zeigler, director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), during the opening session. “Certainly, the success of hybrid rice in China is well known,” added Dr. Zeigler, “and the potential for hybrid rice to have an impact across the rest of the rice-growing world is something that we all believe is real.”

The participants of the Hybrid Rice Research and Development Consortium inaugural meeting 3-4 April 2008 in Los Banos (Philippines).