The push for hybrid rice seeds gathered momentum this week, with rice experts assembled here arguing that farmers the world over stand to reap a bigger harvest from the high yields that such grain would reportedly bring.

China's impressive achievement in promoting hybrid rice was singled out by the experts during a meeting of the International Rice Commission (IRC), attended by officials from 61 countries.

However, this line of thinking, which puts strong emphasis on high yields, has failed to convince some critics of the benefits of this science-led rice technology, who say it leaves little room for farmers' traditional knowledge and is ''economically unsound''.

They argue that the experts have little to say about the high pesticide and fertiliser use required by hybrid grains, which are a cost for the farmer and a burden on the environment.

But explaining how hybrid rice can actually help farmers and economies, Sant Virmani, a plant breeder at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), explains: ''We need to increase rice production per unit area and technology helps. China is the best example of such a trend.''

''Through hybrid rice you can save paddy lands,'' he says.

''Hybrid rices, developed and commercialised in the People's Republic of China during the 1970s, have a yield advantage, compared to the conventionally-selected cultivars, of about 15 percent,'' stated R B Singh, the Asia-Pacific regional representative for the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), in a research paper for the IRC meeting.

15 million hectares

China currently has some 15 million hectares, nearly 50 percent of its rice lands, dedicated to growing hybrid rice. This effort began in the early 1960s — a time when no other rice-producing nations showed an interest in this line of science.

According to the UN's food agency, China is expected to produce 179.5 million tonnes of paddy rice this year, a figure slightly higher than last year's harvest of 179.3 million tonnes.

China is the world's largest producer of rice, followed by India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Thailand. The FAO forecasts global production for 2002 to be nearly 597.7 million tonnes of paddy, up from 595.9 million tonnes in 2001.

Of these countries, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Vietnam have joined China in the quest for sowing their fields with hybrid varieties, Virmani said during a presentation on the use of hybrid rice in the tropics.

Since 1994, 23 hybrid rice varieties for tropical countries have been developed by IRRI and released to nine Asian countries. Asia is the largest producer of rice in the world, with an expected output of 543.6 million tonnes of paddy this year.

The growing popularity of hybrid rice in Asia is reflected in the increasing stretches of land being cultivated with this product of science.

''The area planted with hybrid rice outside China has increased by 413,000 hectares, more than a two-fold increase over 1997, when the area was 287,000 hectares,'' Virmani reveals.

Economic sense

Another FAO expert says that this shift makes economic sense, particularly for the farmers. ''You cannot avoid technology. Countries need to bring the technology to rice farmers,'' asserts Concepcion Calpe, a senior rice commodity specialist at the Rome-based UN agency.

Add to this the Asia-Pacific's dependence on rice as a dietary staple for the majority of its urban and rural dwellers, particularly the underprivileged, and you have a situation where global food security is equated with Asia-Pacific rice security. Ninety percent of rice, in fact, is consumed in Asia.

Calpe says farmers are currently getting a raw deal for their products, despite ''demand being higher than supply for the third consecutive year.'' This economic reality, she points out, has more to do with some nations stepping in to help local rice farmers through subsidies and other economic incentives, thus driving down the price of rice globally.

''The rice market is not transparent at all,'' she asserts. ''It is not a market that reflects a natural trend, where low prices stems from a drop in the cost of production. The farmers in some Asian countries are affected by the dramatic drop in prices due to subsidies in the region.''

Currently, a tonne of rice is sold for less than US$200, when it should be fetching above US$250 per tonne on the world market.

Given this trend, rice farmers will have to embrace the push for hybrid rice as a way of staying in the economic playing field and being competitive, Calpe explains. ''There is a need to produce rice at a lower cost through technology.''

Buy new seeds

According to IRRI's estimates, farmers who switch to hybrid rice will have to fork out an extra US$20 to US$30 per hectare to buy the new seeds, but the yield will be one to 1.5 tonnes extra yield. That should bring the farmer US$150 per hectare more in returns.

''The farmers don't lose with hybrid rice,'' asserts IRRI's Virmani.

Yet farmers' rights activists and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) question this rationale. ''IRRI's approach is very narrow. It only focuses on genetic manipulation to get high yields,'' says Witoon Lianchamroon of BioThai, an NGO that works on biodiversity issues.

Under the IRRI's scheme, the farmer is compelled to buy seeds every year, rather than rely on the customary practise of planting seeds saved from a previous harvest, he adds. ''This is bad for the farmer. It is economically unsound.''

What is more, activists like Witoon argue that the environmental impact is not factored in, since farmers using hybrid rice ''have to depend on extensive use of fertilisers and pesticides''.

FAO's Singh concedes that environmental issues have to be addressed by those promoting hybrid rice to avoid errors from the past — such as the Green Revolution of the sixties and seventies — including the ''misuse of pesticides''. — IPS