In an article titled "The White Plague - Bangladesh Fights its Salinity Problem," the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) describes efforts to improve on the original rice variety through a participatory varietal selection process, as well as farmer uptake of the tolerant rice variety.
July 2011: The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has released the July-September edition of its newsletter Rice Today, which includes an article on climate impacts on rice paddies in Bangladesh and the use of salt-tolerant rice varieties.
An article on “The White Plague – Bangladesh Fights its Salinity Problem” describes efforts to improve on the original rice variety through a participatory varietal selection process, as well as farmer uptake of the tolerant rice variety. It notes IRRI’s increasing efforts to help rice tolerate salt stress and identify the genes that contribute to salinity tolerance.
In another article on “Mankind takes a giant leap – again,” IRRI describes its contributions of over 100,000 seeds of rice and wild relatives to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. It notes that this contribution represents duplicates of the diversity within IRRI’s International Rice Genebank. The Global Seed Vault is an outgrowth of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The article indicates that scientists are searching for wild rice genes that provide more yield and is tolerant of drought, heat, flooding and saline soils.
IRRI is a member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). [Publication: Rice Today Volume 10 Nº3]