The Hindu Business Line : Rice: Towards enhancing yield in rain-fed areas

IN SPITE of the impressive gains achieved in overall food production in recent years, the food scenario in India remains a cause of concern with respect to production and consumption. Even a marginal dip in foodgrains output for one year can lead to problems in food management.

Despite the variety of food crops grown, wheat and rice remain the principal staples produced and consumed in India. While the region encircling the Indo-Gangetic plains is dominated by the cultivation and consumption of wheat, Peninsular India is the main rice region, although the grain is grown over a wider geographic area from the high valleys of the Himalayas to the below-sea-level backwaters of Kerala.

In pockets with favourable conditions — certain parts of Tamil Nadu, for instance — farmers reap four crops of rice a year. This gives rice an edge over wheat that can be grown only in the cooler months.

The rice plant thrives in both tropical and sub-tropical/temperate growing conditions. Thus, rice is the staple food of 65 per cent of the Indian population. The country will need to add about 2.5 million tonnes of milled rice every year to sustain the present level of food sufficiency.

Rice is the principal source of nutrition, calories and dietary protein needs. The less-privileged depend on rice for 60-70 per cent of their calorie requirements.

The area under rice accounts for about 22 per cent (44.6 million hectares) of the total cropped land, 34 per cent of the food crop area and 42 per cent of the area under cereals.

The nation's rice output level of 87.8 million tonnes expected this year (2004-05) is about 6 per cent less than the all time high of 93.08 million tonnes achieved in 2001-02. The current level of rice production accounts for 46 per cent of the cereal output and 42 per cent of the total food grain production in the country.

Rice is not just a food crop, the growth and stability of rice is vital for national food and nutrition security. Indeed `Rice is Life', as the official slogan of the recently concluded United Nations International Year of Rice told farmers who grow it.

According to economists, enhancing the yield and ensuring stability of production of rice from rain-fed areas is the key to eradicating poverty and under-development in large parts of India.

This fact was acknowledged by rice breeders and scientists from different parts of India who met in Bangalore recently, and reviewed the progress in efforts to improve rice.

Convened by the Directorate of Rice Research, the institutional set up of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research for rice improvement, the Bangalore meet called for the enhancement of rice production "on a sustainable basis", not only to meet food security and consumer demands, but also be competitive in the export market. Global trade in rice, which was insignificant in comparison to wheat all these years, is projected to grow steadily in the post-WTO food trading.

To sustain rice production, the focus has to shift to rain-fed rice farming areas. Of India's total rice cultivated area of 44.6 million hectares, only 21 million hectares (about 45 per cent) is irrigated. About 70 per cent of the annual rice production of 87 million tonnes comes from the irrigated area. The remaining 30 per cent comes from areas that are rain-fed. Rain-fed areas are vulnerable to the vagaries of rain and therefore, the fluctuations in their output.

The average rice productivity on irrigated land is 2.3-3.5 tonnes per hectare. The productivity from rain-fed ecologies is meagre and fluctuates between 0.5-1.6 tonnes per hectare. The rice improvement research and extension support by the government have so far benefited only farmers with irrigation facilities

Farmers in uplands, low lying areas, and salt and flood-prone areas depend solely on rain. And often, they are left outside the safety net of agricultural developmental plans and services. They are also caught in the vicious circle of rainfall failure leading to drought, the resulting loss of crop causing indebtedness that in turn forces them to sell off assets and ultimately migrate to the urban areas in search of wage labour.

Their children remain illiterate as their parents are unable to send them to school in hard pressed years. Now there is hope for the farmers in rain-fed areas. Research in biotechnology has made possible rice plants that grow and mature faster and are resistant to drought conditions. Plant breeding assisted by the genetic-marker enables rice scientists to combine a drought resistant gene from one variety with a variety that is high yielding.

The farmers are advised to harvest rainwater and use it during critical plant growth periods. The result is that even in a drought year, farmers can get reasonable yields from their rain-fed land.

Even a 20 per cent increase in yield from the rain-fed areas would make a big impact at the national level. According to sociologists rice-yield stability in rain-fed areas is the fist step to eradicating poverty and ending underdevelopment in these areas.

The State agricultural universities in major rain-fed rice areas are engaged in this nationally coordinated research in rice. They are Tamil Nadu Agricultrual University (Coimbatore), University of Agricultural Sciences (Bangalore), Indira Gandhi Agricultrual University (Raipur), Acharya Narendra Dev Agriculture University (Faizabad) and Birsa Agricultural University (Ranchi).

These universities are conducting research to improve the local rice plant using marker technology. Some of them such as the Tamil Nadu Agricultrual University and Birsa University have come up with rice plants that yield high in a normal rainfall year and perform well even in a drought year.

Research in these universities is supported by international donor agencies such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute.

These research activities, intended to stabilise production in rice from non-irrigated areas, need national support and resource pledging. The Bangalore meet has highlighted the need for a national strategy to improve rain-fed rice and increase its output.

(The author, former editor, (agriculture and environment), United News of India, is Senior Consultant and Faculty at the School of Agriculture, IGNOU, New Delhi.)

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