GRAIN
April 2010
For decades now, hybrid rice has been promoted across Asia as a silver bullet for hunger. But a new collaborative briefing published by GRAIN and several other organisations in Asia and the Pacific* examines how hybrid rice has consistently failed Asia’s small farmers over the past decade. From Bangladesh to China, from the Philippines to Indonesia, the promised increased yield has been elusive in farmers’ fields, and the expansion of hybrid rice is now being linked to a recent upsurge of outbreaks of planthoppers across Asia. Hybrid rice is not being promoted for agricultural development but for the control over farming that it offers and the profits that it generates for the seed and agro-chemical companies.
This briefing looks at the main players behind the hybrid rice push, from the big transnational corporations like Bayer and DuPont and their partnerships with public research centres, such as IRRI, to the Chinese seed companies working with their government to develop hybrid rice overseas in countries such as Liberia, Uzbekistan, Papua New Guinea, and Timor Leste. It unpacks the hidden agenda behind hybrid rice and lays out the devastating consequences for small farmers if the push is not stopped.
The briefing is available for download here: here: http://www.grain.org/nfg/?id=730. More
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