Publication - 17 March, 2005
What happened to the rice landraces during the 'Green Revolution'? There are few sectors in agriculture where the so-called Green Revolution had such an overwhelming impact as in rice production. In 1966, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) released the first high yielding rice variety in the Philippines. In the subsequent decade a small number of such high yielding varieties (HYV) almost completely replaced thousands of the traditional rice landraces previously cultivated by the farmers. The traditional varieties where collected for conservation in the seed banks of national and international research institutions, which farmers had no access to. Adoption of the new varieties was expedited through vigorous political support in the Philippines, as in other Asian countries.