Policy and institutional support to expedite the development and use of hybrid rice technology

摘要

Alarms are once more being sounded for the beginning of a long-term trend in which staple grain harvests, particularly of rice, have slackened and have failed to outpace demand in several countries in Asia.Despite the remarkable production performance of the region in the past, several countries were threatened by declining rice supply and demand balances while others continued to rely on their neighbors to overcome their increasing domestic deficits.Although recent projection studies indicated a rosy baseline scenario for rice in which Asia would have a net surplus of about 16.4 million tons in 2025,the estimates were contingent on the continuation and maintenance of the favorable interrelationship of several factors that affect trends in technology development,flows in investment,environmental protection,and human behavior.Failures in any one of these factors could have a devastating impact on the future of rice. Hence, the big challenge is to promotean environment to prevent the key development factors from turning against the agricultural sector. The adoption of appropriateand well-balanced policy reforms could help ensure sustained rice production growth and equity in Asia. The great potential of hybrid rice technology to increase rice production has been exhibited in China and other countries.However, some constraints and challenges hamper further development and the wide-scale adoption of the technology.These constraints have both technical and policy dimensions.The technical constraints include,primarily,further improvement of breeding lines not only to further increase and stabilize their yields but also to improve their quality.The policy constraints involve the challenge of promoting and intensifying dialogue with policymakers to increase and sustain investments in hybrid rice research,strengthen collaboration among various stakeholders,and create a positive environment for the expanded production and marketing of hybrid rice seed. As the title suggests,this paper aims to identify policy and institutional options and strategies to help expedite and sustain the development and wide-scale use of hybrid rice technology,primarily in the original six member countries of the International Hybrid Rice Network:Bangladesh,India,Indonesia,the Philippines, Sri Lanka,and Vietnam.The options and strategies will vary across the countries because of the differential stage of development of hybrid rice technology.In all of them.however.there are three keys to successful commercialization of the technology:higher and more stable profits,availability of an appropriate and dependable package of technology,and a strong public-private-sector linkage.