Chat with Duncan Macintosh, Part 2

What is biotech rice anyway? There are a lot of terms that get thrown around: genetically modified rice (GM), hybrids, biotech, etc. and I, and many others, get confused. I asked Duncan to clarify it for me.

There are four types of rice:

1. Traditional rice varieties: These have been developed in a specific region over long periods of time. They have great aroma and taste, lousy disease resistance, and don’t respond to fertilizer (the application of fertilizer produces more leaves, not grains). The Ifugao tinawon, grown only in these rice terraces, is one example.

2. Modern high yielding varieties: These were obtained through traditional plant breeding. Some of these include short stemmed varieties, varieties that respond to fertilizer (application produces more grains, not leaves), and many have built in pest and disease resistance. This also includes varieties that have been created by precision breeding, where genetic markers from one rice variety are bred with the other in a lab.

3. Hybrid Varieties: This is when two different varieties are bred to make a new variety. These highly respected varieties produce new seeds every year and farmers love them because they give a fantastic yield. Unfortunately these varieties are also going to uneducated farmers who don’t know what they’re doing with them. Governments purchase these varieties and give them to farmers because they have a pressure for self-sufficiency. Unfortunately, here in Ifugao for example, the government pushed the high yielding variety and it destroyed the soil.

4. Genetically modified rice: defined as rice with genes from another species (such as Golden Rice, with genes from a daffodil, or rice bred with pesticide genes from Monsanto). This rice is the most controversial—while it can provide a service on one level, the effects of their genetic mutations on the ecosystem and on our bodies are unknown.

So, to clarify, biotech rice is anything that involves the movement of genes, any work done at the genetic level. Greenpeace supports a form of bio-tech called precision breeding, which falls under the “modern high yielding” category. Interspecies breeding is fine with them. GM rice however, they are strictly against—as am I.

I did have a bone to pick with Duncan. I mentioned what happened in the 70’s when I.R.R.I. created a hybrid rice variety, the highly touted RI-8 or “Miracle Rice.” Phil Rice marketed it like crazy up here; introduced it to the farmers with all sorts of promises, and then it tore up the soil and didn’t yield much at all. It also tasted bad and didn’t have an aroma at all.

“Our process has changed a lot in the last forty years,” he said. “Back then, they just developed a new variety and practically threw it over the fence. When the RI-8 variety was developed, the systems were really underdeveloped. They didn’t have rice researchers to do the adaptive work that we do now. Now the process is a never-ending consultation with farmers who talk to Phil Rice about their problems, then Phil Rice talks to us.”

“No one talks about new varieties anymore; they talk about characteristics. You can make varieties with characteristics like flood tolerant rice, for example. The work we do now is much more subtle.”

Now I.R.R.I. has a bit of a damaged reputation to fix. They’ve got to recover from their own past mistakes, as well as separate themselves from corporations like Monsanto. They’ve realized that their previous top down mentality didn’t work.

“Farmers will always come back to us on quality. You can’t just focus on yield and production—they want rice that tastes good too.”