By Johnny F. Goloyugo | Correspondent
ENGLISH philosopher Roger Bacon, the famous Doctor Mirabilis (“wonderful teacher”) from England, must have first used the word “almanac” in the latter part of the 13th century. Although the origin of the word is obscure, early almanacs were actually calendars that dealt with detailed movements of the heavenly bodies, as well as agricultural and meteorological data.
There are other known almanacs available in the market, like astrological and fictional almanacs, including almanac calculators. All these conjure images of statistics, graphs, illustrations, diagrams, tables and, of late, digitized photographs.
But what is interesting is that despite the presence of agriculture almanacs as early as the 17th and 19th centuries, such as the Harris’s Farmer’s Almanac (1692-present), Blum’s Farmer’s Almanac (1828-present) and Farmers’ Almanac (1818-present), it was only in 1993 that an Asian-focused Rice Almanac, published by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) based in Los Baños, Laguna, came about in response to the “long-felt need to bring together general information about rice—its origin, its growth and production.”
Until recently, the Global Rice Science Partnership (GRISP), a three-member consortium within the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), led by IRRI (the two others are Africa Rice Center and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture) released the fourth edition of the Rice Almanac, a “source book for one of the most important economic activities on Earth.”
GRISP Director Bas Bauman said this 283-page edition is breaking a “new ground in its coverage of issues related to rice production, both environmental—including climate change—and importance of food security and the global economy.”
The chapter on Rice and the Environment focuses on rice environments and cropping systems, soils, water use and water productivity, ecosystem services, managing pests in the rice ecosystem, environmental impacts and rice and health.
“Rice production mainly affects the environment by releasing or sequestering gases or compounds that are active in the atmosphere or troposphere and by changing the chemical composition of the water flowing through rice fields. Rice is, in turn, affected by environmental changes, such as global climate change,” the almanac reveals.
“Climate change is expected to raise carbon-dioxide levels and temperatures and, possibly, increase the frequency of extreme climatic events in some areas, such as storms, droughts and heavy rainfall in monsoon climates, that will increase the incidence of flooding. Rising sea levels are expected to increase flood risk and salinity intrusion in rice-growing environments,” the almanac says.
Global rice production and consumption, production and yield trends, international and domestic rice markets, domestic policy instruments and changes in demography and the rice economy are discussed in the Rice in the Economy chapter.
Also highlighted are rice-production challenges, challenges for future cropping systems and response options.
Rice around the world highlights rice and food security in Asia; rice in Latin America and the Caribbean, West Africa, East and Southern Africa, South America and Europe.
Also featured are 10 countries in Asia—Bangladesh, Cambodia China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
Of special interest are rice-production opportunities in the Philippines. The Rice Almanac states that “to become self-sufficient in rice, it has to adopt existing technologies, such as improved varieties and know-how to have yield increase by 1 to 3 ton per hectare. Better-quality seed combined with good management, including new postharvest technologies, is the best way to improve rice yields and the quality of production.”
The almanac further says, “The [Philippine] government must implement a strategy to reduce population growth since the actual volume of rice produced in the country is not enough to match rice demand because of the high increase in population.”
“If population growth will be higher than the growth in yield, the country will continue to import rice from other countries to meet domestic demand for rice in the coming years,” the almanac concluded.
Also featured are Sub-Saharan Africa—Madagascar, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania; and Latin America—Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Uruguay.