Annual report 1998-1999

Poverty amid plenty, shrinking birthrates and swelling population, more rice and more hunger: Asia’s future will be filled with contradictions. Can the continent cope?

In much of Asia, plentiful, cheap rice has been the propelling force behind economic, political, and social stability. Rice has kept the continent nourished, employed, and peaceful.

"The true ‘Asian miracle’hasn’t been stunning economic development," says IRRI economist Mahabub Hossain. "It’s been keeping people fed."

And food in Asia means rice.

This vast continent grows--and eats--more than 90 percent of all the world’s rice on more than 250 million tiny farms, with most Asians eating rice two or three times a day. Half of every harvest never even leaves the farm: it feeds the family that planted it. Hundreds of millions of poor people spend half to three-fourths of their incomes on rice--and nothing else. For these people, rice anchors their precarious lives.

Farmers have grown an astounding 2.5 percent more rice each year since 1965. This "extra rice" feeds an additional 600 million people, and has stayed neck and neck with the ever-growing demand. Increasingly bountiful rice harvests from the late 1970s through the late 1980s--mainly thanks to high-yielding modern varieties, more irrigation, and more access to credit--have accounted for nearly four-fifths of this growth. The result? A stunning drop in the real price of rice.

Dr. Hossain describes this cheap rice as "the single most important contribution" IRRI has made in Asia. This rice has helped to reduce poverty by enabling the rural landless and the urban working class to buy more food with the same income.

But rice alone cannot change the world, with recent World Bank figures telling the story: 1.3 billion people still live in poverty, 840 million suffer from hunger, and 2 billion are malnourished. Seventy percent of these people are Asians, and half the developing world’s poor live in South Asia. Although many countries experienced success in reducing poverty through rapid economic growth, the financial crisis that began in mid-1997 is causing some to slide backward.

Another billion hungry rice eaters will be added in Asia by 2020. Then, more than four billion people--more than half the world’s population--will depend on rice. Will Asia be able to grow enough rice? And will it be able to get this food to everyone who needs it? A hard look at the situation provides a cold-shower dose of reality--and hope that Asia can cope.

Drowning in People

While growing prosperity and the urbanization of Asia factor into the equation, the demand for rice boils down to one thing: population. Most Asian countries are still growing at an astounding 1.5 to 2.8 percent per year. (The exceptions are China, Japan, Republic of Korea, and Thailand.) Despite the United Nations’ encouraging estimates that population growth rates for the next 25 years will be half of what they’ve been the past 25 years, it’s already too late to stop the massive tidal wave of humanity.

The absolute increase in Asia’s people over the next 30 years will essentially be as large as over the past 30 years, primarily because of the expanded population base. Asia’s humanity is projected to increase from 1995’s 3.4 billion to about 4.8 billion in 2025. Ironically, the poorest populations will continue to grow the fastest. In South Asia, population is projected to increase by 732 million between 1995 and 2025--surpassing the 670 million added between 1965 and 1995.

        Demand for rice during the next 25 years is expected to increase by 65 percent in the Philippines, 51 percent in Bangladesh, 46 percent in India, 45 percent in Vietnam, and 38 percent in Indonesia. In one generation, for example, the Philippines’ population will grow from today’s 75 million to 115 million. "The Philippines is already importing rice," Dr. Hossain says. "What will it do in 25 years?"

Total demand also depends on the number of rural and urban people, poor and rich. By 2020, half of Asia’s population will be urban. Dr. Hossain predicts that urbanization will actually dampen Asia’s overall demand for rice. But, with growing affluence, the demand for high-quality rice will surge and that for "ordinary" rice will decline. Poor people, whether rural or urban, typically eat more rice than rich people. But, with economic growth and reduced poverty, demand for rice is expected to escalate in poverty-stricken regions of Asia as the poor satisfy their unmet food needs.

How Much Will They Eat?

The demand for rice has grown annually at 2.5 percent over the past three decades. Mercifully, during the next quarter century, it is projected to grow at only 1 percent annually according to IRRI’s sister institution, the International Food Policy Research Institute. The main reasons? Slower economic growth since mid-1997 and less demand for rice in East Asia. But, in poverty-ridden countries, demand for rice will explode.

 More mouths to feed translates into a need for one-third more "new rice" than what is eaten today. The figures are frightening. Farmers must consistently produce an extra 6.7 million tons of unmilled rice--every year--without fail. Even if this can be achieved, it will merely maintain current nutrition levels, which are already inadequate for hundreds of millions of people.

No More Quick Fixes

The magic Green Revolution formula of more productive rice varieties, more fertilizer, and more water for irrigation pushed Asia’s rice production off the charts. Between 1966 and 1997, production grew by 116 percent and yield accelerated by 88 percent, while area expanded by only 15 percent. But population zoomed from 1.9 billion to 3.5 billion, and poverty remained endemic.

With so much more food, why then do hunger and poverty still persist in Asia? The closing of the land frontier and uncontrolled population growth are "undoing the good work of the Green Revolution," says Professor S.R. Osmani of the University of Ulster. "If the entitlement-enhancing effects of modern varieties do not seem to reduce poverty, it’s because these effects aren’t strong enough to outweigh the impoverishing force unleashed by population growth."

Despite keeping Asia fed, researchers, watchdog groups, and government officials are once again sounding the alarm and trying to shake off the complacency of success. Rice harvests have slackened since the mid-1980s and have failed to outpace demand in several countries. Dr. Hossain believes this is the beginning of a long-term trend rather than a cyclical downswing. And this could spell trouble for Asia.

With it only taking 11 years now for the world to add another billion people, never before has so much been expected so quickly from agriculture. Tomorrow’s farmers will have to grow this extra rice without the quick-fix boosts of the past: new land, abundant water, cheap labor, and high responsiveness to extra fertilizer. And, their rice will have to compete on the cutthroat global market.

Where Have All the Rice Fields Gone?
Rice farmers are already having difficulties coaxing more rice from their fields. But in the future they will have even less land for growing rice as factories, roads, houses, skyscrapers, and parking lots devour fields. In Java alone, 30,000 hectares of agricultural land vanish each year--which could supply rice for 800,000 people. Rice will also have to compete with more lucrative crops for field space.

Water Fights

Although the amount of water on Earth doesn’t change, its availability for rice farming will become only a trickle of what it once was. The battle for water is becoming fierce as population balloons and economic development intensifies. Governments will most likely continue to divert water from agriculture to give priority to water for drinking, sanitation, and industry. Few options are left for economically expanding irrigation in profitable and environment-friendly ways.

Who Wants to Be a Rice Farmer?

Simple economics dictates that when people see an opportunity to earn more, they move--especially from low-paying, backbreaking, seasonal agricultural work. And who can blame them? Today, the rural landscape is increasingly populated by old people, children, and women--the men and the young have migrated to the cities.

Asia will increasingly be challenged by how to make rice farming attractive for the next generation. "I don’t want my four children to be farmers," says Thai rice farmer Wan Dapan. "I want them to be involved in business--a farmer’s life is too difficult."

Fertilizer Woes

Fertilizer fatigue is an ailment that rice and other crops increasingly experience: adding the same amount of fertilizer--or more—doesn’t give as much grain as it used to for many farmers.

"We’re worried about just maintaining current rice production levels, let alone increasing them," says Dr. Osamu Ito, head of IRRI’s Agronomy, Plant Physiology, and Agroecology Division. Fertilizer-use efficiency must be boosted in environment-friendly ways. Varieties that are more responsive to fertilizer--whether organic or manufactured--require rice researchers to go all out using both conventional plant breeding and biotechnology.

Global Trade Dampens Rice Production
Unlike any other major commodity, only 6.6 percent of all the world’s rice is traded on the international market. The rest is eaten in the country where it was grown, making the prospects for alleviating rice deficits through imports a bit complex.

Exporting surplus rice just doesn’t pay for middle- and high-income countries, which generally grow only enough rice to feed themselves. In the late 1980s, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reported that it cost about 17 times more to grow rice in Japan than in Thailand and Vietnam, and about 10 times more than in Australia and the United States.

High-cost domestic production on small family farms prohibits richer Asian countries from competing with poorer Asian countries, where wages are low and family labor is still available, and with agricultural giants, such as Australia and the United States, which reap economies of scale on large farms.

When the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is fully implemented, beware: the years of protecting domestic rice industries will haunt high-cost producers. When domestic markets are opened, cheap imported rice will flood the market, driving down prices, encouraging farmers to abandon their rice fields to seek employment in urban factories, and panicking governments about food security.

With economic growth, the comparative advantage in rice shifts to poorer countries. But as these countries struggle to feed their own burgeoning populations, as in Vietnam and eastern India, will they have rice to export?

Rice for the Right Price

As rich countries produce less rice, Asia may have to look beyond its borders to feed its people. FAO estimates that 20 million hectares of river valleys in western and southern Africa, and 20 million hectares in South America, could be grown to rice. Rice prices must increase substantially, however, for this to become economical.

Within Asia, the prospects of bringing additional land into rice cultivation are limited. Monsoon-dependent eastern India has considerable excess capacity in rice. If scientists succeed in developing appropriate high-yielding varieties for the drought- and flood-prone environments, rice production can increase substantially. But if poverty is reduced while population growth goes unchecked, the two may be a hungry combination that will devour every single additional grain of rice eastern India can grow.

Only Myanmar and Cambodia will be able to produce surplus rice to meet potential shortages in other Asian countries, but investment costs will be steep. And, cautions Dr. Hossain, this extra rice may not even add much to the world rice market because exports from Thailand and Vietnam will most likely decline.

Cooking Up Solutions
The fear of famine in South and Southeast Asia is still very real, and endemic poverty persists. To feed another 500 million new rice consumers each decade for the next 50 years, the rice plant must be fundamentally reshaped so that it can produce more.

The achievements of IRRI and its many partners in rice-eating Asia have repeatedly helped postpone collisions between food production ability and population demand. Because the easy gains have been reaped, the need for more sophisticated technology is even more urgent now than in 1960.

The new technological breakthroughs that would ensure abundant rice supplies for the next decades have yet to be found. The challenge for rice scientists is awesome: to conduct research that will help Asia grow more rice on limited land, in ways that do not harm the environment, and that benefit both farmers and consumers and the rural and urban poor.

If there is to be enough rice cooking in the pot, Asia--and the world--must find the determination to increase funding for research, population control, and poverty reduction.

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