Genetic diversity for sustainable rice blast management in China: adoption and impact.

The experience on rice blast in Yunnan Province, China, is one of the most successful and widely publicized examples of genetic diversification for disease suppression in practice. The wet, cool climate of the province is highly favourable for the development of rice blast epidemics. Before 1998, farmers had to spray fungicides three to eight times per cropping season to successfully grow a crop of glutinous or sticky rice. To reduce farmers’ dependence on these harmful agrochemicals, a team of scientists from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and Yunnan Agricultural University (YAU) initiated a project in Yunnan Province with the objective to explore the possibilities of using biodiversity as a means to control blast outbreaks, and through the associated increase in productivity and income, contribute to poverty alleviation.

This study focuses on the effects of the developed technology, i.e., interplanting one row of high-value, but blast-susceptible glutinous rice, with four to six rows of blast-resistant hybrid indica rice varieties, on blast management and the socio-economics, i.e., productivity and farm income, as a basis for explaining its adoption...