Rice of the Gods

To chronically starving Asia, reports of the new rice sounded like an invitation to a feast. It was tough and fast-growing, able to root almost anywhere and twice as bountiful as ordinary strains. Crossbred from a common tropical rice called peta (meaning seed) and an ancient Chinese variety known as dee-geo-woo-gen (brown-tipped, sharp-legged thing), IR8, as scientists tagged the hybrid, was promptly--and prematurely--labeled a miracle.

Then, as results came in from experimental plantings two years ago, the miracle proved highly vulnerable to such mundane enemies as bacteria, blight and insects. It required expensive nitrogen fertilization and often broke during milling. Many Asians, who prefer their rice sticky and manageable in the bowl, found IR8 too starchy and dry. Indonesians, in particular, complained because the stubby IR8 stalks had to be cut with a larger blade than could be concealed in the hand. That, they felt, offended their rice goddess.

Back to the potting shed went IR8's developers at the U.S.-sponsored International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. By slow, painstaking crossbreeding with other varieties of rice, they gradually enhanced IR8's strong qualities and got rid of its weaknesses. As a result, IR8 is now beginning to live up to its potential. A few months ago, it was joined by IR5-47-2, a related variety that requires less fertilizer and is less susceptible to disease. Delighted with their new hybrids, the researchers are convinced that some biological kin of IR8 will eventually become Asia's basic rice source.

Widely planted under President Ferdinand Marcos' "Rice, Roads and Schoolhouses" program, improved IR8 has already helped make the Philippines a rice exporter for the first time in this century. In the paddies of India, Pakistan and Malaysia, farmers are sowing thousands of acres of IR8. Even the Indonesians have been persuaded to shuck their fears of divine indignation; last week they received 600 tons of harvested IR8 from the Philippines in the first international deal involving the new rice. The Filipinos have also been sending hundreds of tons of IR8 and IR5 seed to South Viet Nam. Much of it has gone into 10,000 "miracle rice" kits recently handed out by U.S. agricultural advisers. Yielding four or five tons per hectare (2.5 acres), or twice the national average, the rice has already shown such promise that South Vietnamese peasants have taken to calling it than nong, or "rice of the agricultural god."

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