The Social Science Sequel to ‘Growing Rice like Wheat'

The Social Science Sequel to ‘Growing Rice like Wheat’: Transition towards dry rice cultivation requires integration of natural and social sciences Dr. Paul C. Struik Head of the Centre for Crop Systems Analysis and Professor of Crop Physiology Wageningen University, Wageningen The Netherlands Social Sciences Division Seminar Tuesday, 3 Febuary 2015 10:00 am - 11:00 am SSD Conference Room | J. Drilon Building International Rice Research Institute Philippines Abstract The programme on Growing rice like wheat, strongly supported and facilitated by IRRI, is well underway. There are great prospects for exciting new insights into the mechanisms why these two major cereal staple crops differ so strongly in their response to drought and water logging. We hope to gain enough physiological insight into those different mechanisms and into their genetic background to provide a quantitative and detailed analysis and to come up with innovative breeding strategies and agronomic tools to reduce water input in rice production and to make rice a more drought-tolerant crop. If this can be achieved then enough rice can be produced with much less input of water per unit of product. The transition towards such water-saving systems will require social-economic changes, both at the level of the individual farm and at higher levels of organization. Optimizing rice production within the framework of genotype-by-environment-by-management-by-society interactions will demand innovative approaches that will require a considerable change in the institutional infrastructure. The knowledge chain will have to be adapted and the water management will have to be altered. Mapping and analysing impact pathways of the transition from paddy rice to aerobic or even dryland rice are crucial. This is only possible on the basis of thoroughly conceptualized research integrating social and natural sciences, consisting of experimental field research on the agronomic and socio-economic consequences of changing the existing system and empirical research on existing upland rice production systems to identify key success factors of those systems. Wageningen based social and natural scientists seek synergy with the IRRI staff to draft a programme consisting of a social science sequel of the current natural science oriented programme Growing rice like Wheat.