Rice, glorious rice

The usual party small talk and inane chatter were, mercifully, in short supply. Despite deadlines and SARS, I was determined to make it to this particular dinner party all the way in Corinthian Gardens in Quezon City.

The dinner was in honor of a small, gristle-haired man who appeared obviously ill at ease in his suit and leather shoes. But Dr. Yuan Long-ping was the star of the evening, and the star of a five-year long program to develop a variety of high-yielding rice that would feed our ever-growing population.

That evening, Dr. Yuan was a happy man indeed, for earlier in the day harvest at a trial farm yielded an astonishing 10.37 tons per hectare, compared to the normal three to five tons per hectare that our farms produce.

I couldn’t help but be caught up in the excitement over rice, paying keen attention to the discussions about grain count per panicle (350 compared to the usual 120) and fertilizing techniques (one row of male plants is used to fertilize eight rows of female plants; this may be chauvinistic and politically incorrect, but it certainly is agriculturally correct).

Now that the hybrid has been established and propagated, the challenge is the commercial-ization of this hybrid–producing enough seed so that it can be planted on a large scale. As of now, farmers’ demand for seeds is far greater than the supply (there is at the moment enough seeds for only 35,000 hectares). That is easier said than done, it seems, because as farmers’ incomes increase because of the vastly higher yield, it has become more difficult–certainly more expensive–to lease land on which to grow the seed stock.

Dr. Yuan, now in his 70s, started experimenting with rice hybrids more than three decades ago, but none of his colleagues believed it could be done and he was ostracized for his uncon-ventional ideas. But he kept at it, and developed varieties that fed China’s teeming masses. Dr. Yuan then sought to bring his gospel of hybrid rice beyond China–another unpopular idea–and fortunately he settled on the Philippines. His reason for doing so is almost like a fairy tale: during the years of famine in China, it was kamote from the Philippines that kept the people alive; he is now simply returning the favor.

I had the double privilege that evening of having my picture taken with this remarkable man and savoring the product of his vision and generosity, and I can say that it was a real thrill–and the rice was delicious.