November 5, 2008

This is the 4th in a series of posts describing my trip to Bangladesh and India. For part 3, see this post.

After celebrating Obama’s victory at our hotel in Kolkata, today we head out to visit the Rice Research Station in Chinsurah, India here in West Bengal.

The driving is not better in India than it was in Bangladesh. At least here, so far, we have not had any accidents. (In Bangladesh on the 6 hour drive from Dhaka, our driver hit a pedestrian and side swiped a bus. No injuries but a lot of screams from the passengers).

The rice research station is housed in a 50 year-old buildings with a crumbling exterior, and sparsely furnished rooms. The fields, however, are well tended. Clearly this is where the effort of the Indian breeders has been spent. And it has paid off. The Swarna sub1 lines are flourishing. Ranjan Gosh, the Joint Director of Agriculture of the government of Wets Bengal, explained that the institute would soon release the Sub1 lines to farmers, who grow 3 crops in this region. First Swarna sub1 will be planted in the wet season (July through November), then potatoes or mustard (november though March) and then Boro rice, a variety that grows in the dry season (March through June).

Out of the 4 million hectares of low-land rice planted in West Bengal, 20% is planted to deep-water rice and 80% to modern high yielding varieties. A full 80% of the modern varieties is planted to Swarna, He expects that within a few years, most of the Swarna rice will be replaced with Swarna-Sub1. The Indian government does not dictate what farmer’s plant, although they do offer 20% subsidies on the rice purchase price. The subsidy encourages purchasing from certified seed agencies. Because farmers rotate their crops and because new varieties are introduced every few years, there is less of a risk of a disease epidemic that can afflict genetically uniform varieties.

Nitrogen is critical to the productivity of rice. The farmers here add 60kg/hectare of urea during the wet season and as much as 100kg/hectare during the dry season. The Indian government has developed a small organic program but it has not taken off for two main reasons. First, there is less land available for livestock so there is less manure available. Since the bird flu hit, there is not enough manure available from chickens. Indian researchers are now attempting a rabbit manure scheme. Second, because most farmers do not have vehicles, they do not have a way to transport and spread the heavy compost onto their fields.

We finished the day with a cold drink of coconut milk and toasts to our new president elect.