“60 Years Of Continuous Rice Research – What Has IRRI Learned About Rice Farming & Climate Change? Asking For A Friend!” – Frank A Hilario
From 2 IRRI websites – lte.irri.org
and irri.org/long-term-experiments
– I have found a total of about 1K (1,000) words as IRRI’s report on those
continuous studies, from at least 120 croppings. Whatever IRRI’s justification
for so many years of studies with so few words to report? Asking for a friend!
About IRRI’s Long -Term Experiments (LTE), the website says
(lte.irri.org):
Inspired by the Green
Revolution, IRRI proactively begun looking at the sustainability of intensive
rice cropping systems in the 1960s with the long-term vision of determining the
interactions among different components of the rice ecosystem.
And what are those interactions (plural) among different
components of the rice ecosystem? I cannot find any digital report.
IRRI has always been
at the forefront of rice research using more advanced rice varieties,
fertilizer management, irrigation approaches, and modern pest control methods
in its Long-Term Continuous Cropping Experiment (LTCCE). It is among the few
"classical" long-term experiments, being the world's longest-running
triple rice cropping experiment. After almost 60 years, IRRI is still leading
in what is now called sustainable agricultural intensification.
IRRI’s LTE Operations Team “manages the long-term
experiments;” the LTE Oversight Committee “oversees and provides scientific
leadership in the evolution of long-term experiments of IRRI.”
Now then, I ask the LTE Operations Team what justifies the
LTE itself? I ask the Oversight Committee: “In these Climate Change times with so
much greenhouse gases (GHGs) generated in ricefields dedicated to chemical
agriculture – that IRRI ricefields are – what makes chemical agriculture
intensification sustainable?”
Today, as an agriculturist and educator (BSA Ag Edu, UPLB
'65), and a communicator for village development in the 21st century
(CoViD21), my original concept since 1980 – today I want to challenge IRRI rice
scientists to set up 2 side-by-side experimental 1-ha plot each:
hybrid rice X cultivated
with IRRI’s best suite of technologies & systems, plus any chemical fertilizer(s);
hybrid rice X cultivated with my original “Organic Rotavator Weeds-Enriched Automatic Layer of Trash Triggering Terrestrial Health” (Organic Rotavator WEALTh) – zero fertilizer.
With my self-generated
rotavator WEALTh, we will compare that which is the better system – Chemical
Farming or Organic Farming – in terms of costs & returns: (a) kg grains and
(b) production cost/kg grains. IRRI can use whatever kind, number and amount of
chemical fertilizers they wish, no problem.
Will IRRI consent to this comparative short-term study, say 1
year? I hope so!
For
CoViD21. Whatever, IRRI should learn what it has failed to learn in the last 15
years when Climate Change became the topic of the day and what Chemical
Agriculture has been contributing to it in terms of greenhouse gases generated
in those ricefields: Yes?@517
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