Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
populations originating at CIAT
s headquarters in Palmira. Colombia.
More recently, Mendez del Villar (2008) reported grain yield growth of
42.2% and 24.7% for LAC in 1990
'
2006, respectively,
whereas Sanint (2004) reported 3.8% annual yield growth, gains that
were higher than those estimated for Asia and Africa. Sanint (2004) also
argued that the result of higher yields in the irrigated sector was to triple
its rice production without expanding the production area, thus pre-
serving more fragile environments. At the same time, unit cost of rice fell
by
-
2000 and 2000
-
50%, which was accompanied by a similar fall in price for con-
sumers. As a consequence, consumption grew and rice became a staple
food for the urban poor with self-suf
∼
ciency in the LAC region around
90%. According to the CGIAR Global Rice Science Partnership (GRiSP
2013), the high return to international and national rice research in LAC
is equivalent to an annual interest rate of 69%, which is extremely
attractive compared with the interest rate of
10% earned on stock
market investments. This indicates that the Green Revolution started
slowly in LAC, but later took off and after 1990 generated greater growth
in LAC than in Asia and Africa.
∼
3. Integration of Different Disciplines in Variety Development.
New
cultivars that produce more with fewer inputs and a smaller environ-
mental footprint have been the main focus of CIAT
s Rice Program
since its inception in the late 1960s. Targeted introductions of exotic
germplasm were made from Africa via the International Institute of
Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the West Africa Rice Development
Association (WARDA, now AfricaRice), as well as from Sri Lanka,
Thailand, India, Chile, and Surinam to improve not only grain yield
potential of rice but also tolerance of the main pests, aiming at a
reduction in pesticide use in rice and the development of rice lines
that were more resilient to biotic and abiotic stresses (Fisher 2012;
Maxted et al. 2012). This was a multidisciplinary team effort, which led
to several products (Correa-Victoria and Zeigler 1993; Martínez et al.
1998a,b; Moncada et al. 2001; Nguyen et al. 2002; Martínez et al. 2003;
Thomson et al. 2003; Aluko et al. 2004; Correa-Victoria et al. 2004;
Martínez et al. 2005; Lopez-Gerena 2006; McCouch et al. 2007; Correa-
Victoria and Martínez 2008; Martínez et al. 2010; Jia et al. 2012) and to
the development of rice lines more ef
'
cient in production under
adverse climatic and soil conditions (Caicedo Ordoñez 2008) and
low nitrogen rates (Castilla 2005). Attention was paid to the develop-
ment of methodologies to enhance the selection of breeding lines with
superior grain quality (Cuevas-Pérez and Berrío Orozco 1987; Berrío
Orozco and Cuevas-Pérez 1989; Torres 2001; Martínez et al. 2005). An
