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Themes

• Development of Rice Resilient Technologies in Response to Climate Change
• Rice Technologies in Asia: Country Reports
• Climate Resistant Rice: The Way Forward

Program highlights

The videoconference workshop was broadcasted online through the WebEx virtual meeting room and was also livestreamed through the FFTC Facebook page.

Workshop video can be watched at:

https://www.facebook.com/fftcforasiaandthepacific/videos/326743831748297

Key takeaways were summarized by presentation:

In her welcome remarks, FFTC Director Dr. Susan Chang emphasized that the videoconference is aligned to the Center’s strategic action plan for 2019-2020 on climate smart agriculture. “We wanted to explore the significant efforts being made by scientists to increase genomic resources and apply innovative breeding techniques to improve the yield and nutritional quality of rice,” she said.

On the other hand, Datuk Dr. Mohamad Roff Bin Mohd Noor, Director General of MARDI, underscored the importance of research in rice breeding to improve the varieties and innovative production agronomy to be the most appropriate approach to mitigate the effects of climate change in rice production.

Australian keynote speaker, Dr. Damien Platten, Senior scientist at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) talked about “Breeding for Climate Change” saying that in order to meet the negative effects on crop yields caused by climate change, IRRI had a major redesign of its rice breeding program. He also talked about IRRI’s OneRice strategy which aims to integrate all actors in the variety development and placement chain into an efficient and effective team to produce well-targeted, well characterized new varieties and place these in target markets/regions in as short a time possible. This, he said, will enable rice breeding to adapt and keep pace as climate and social changes shift requirements in rice production.

Below is a summary of the technologies presented by the speakers from which the discussions revolved around:

• IRRI’s OneRice strategy integrating all the elements in rice variety development and placement chain;
• Malaysia’s new drought tolerant rice varieties (MARDI Siraj 297 and MRQ 76) developed through marker-assisted breeding and introgression, as well as their AWD technology;
• Indonesia’s water management technologies like building of dams, catchment irrigation, and development of their integrated planting calendars;
• Japan’s agricultural support system integrating agrometeorological information and information on crop phenology, nitrogen topdressing techniques;
• The Philippines’ PalayCheck technology from PhilRice, a rice integrated crop management model covering seed quality, land preparation, crop establishment, etc.;
• Taiwan’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) sensors to set up smart rice paddies and the heat tolerant screening nursery from TARI;
• Thailand’s tailor-made climate ready nutrient dense rice from Thailand; and
• Vietnam’s climate smart designer rice varieties, adjusted cropping calendars and cropping intensity, resource management, diversification, early warning and climate information services, etc.

Major Findings and Recommendations

• Form and develop extensive partnerships with national breeding programs and seed systems to develop regional variety testing and market research networks.
• Monitor the effects of climate change from a rice grower’s point of view and develop multi-location testing data combined with an appropriate check strategy.
• Strengthen collaboration between policymakers, agribusiness communities and farmers’ organizations to further address researches on rice and climate change in the short, middle and long-term basis.
• Strengthen information dissemination activities on climate and pests, managing pests, floods, droughts to sustain rice production.
• Encourage and engage entrepreneurs and other actors in the rice industry such as representatives of rice companies, input suppliers and farmers’ cooperatives to play roles in providing production directions for small-scale rice farmers through technical support utilizing experiences, tested technologies and best practices.
• Adopt water management technology as one of the strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change in rice production.

Outcomes

As per Facebook statistics, close to 5,000 viewers watched the videoconference through the FFTC Facebook page and got engaged. The most number of viewers who stayed long was close to 100. Thirty percent of the viewers came from the Philippines with the rest from Malaysia (26%), Taiwan (5%). The rest came from other countries like New Zealand, USA, Thailand, Vietnam and Japan. Close to half (48%) of the pre-registered participants filled out the online evaluation form, 64% of whom are male while the rest (36%) are female. Close to 70% of those who filled out the online evaluation form rated the videoconference as very relevant, while 71% said it was very useful. Online connection got a 60% rating while the FFTC and MARDI Secretariat got a 67% rating. The participants described the videoconference as highly informative, interesting and very good. When asked what the suggestions for a follow-up activity are, some of the answers include webinar on vegetable production, rice mechanization technologies, rice straw management, etc. Almost all of the participants said that in the future, they would be interested to attend a similar activity organized by the Center.