USA: MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH IN GROWING DISEASE RESISTANT RICE

English With the help of genetic engineering, scientists say they have made a major breakthrough in growing rice which is resistant to disease. A special gene has been put into rice for the first time to produce a hardier crop. The breakthrough could eventually increase rice production by as much as 50 per cent. Rice is the staple diet of most Asian and Southeast Asian countries, including here in the Philippines. But many rice plants only manage to yield about half their potential crop due to blight. Now that's all set to change with a breakthrough in breeding disease-resistant rice through the use of genetic engineering. SOUNDBITE: "Well it is a major development. Breeders, plant breeders for years have used resistant genes but they've never had a very good understanding of how they worked and it's taken them years, sometimes decades, to actually move a resistance gene from say a wild relative of rice into elite cultivated varieties". SUPER CAPTION: Gary Toenniessen, Deputy Director of Agricultural Sciences, Rockefeller Institute, New York The technique involves putting a disease-resistant gene into rice, making it immune to a particularly nasty bacterial pathogen. SOUNDBITE: Well, this is the most important bacterial pathogen of rice. It causes significant losses through out Asia, throughout Africa, even in the United States. It can be a serious problem. The degree of loss of production varies from year to year and from region to region, but in many countries of say south Asia and Southeast Asia, rice plants only attain about half of the total yield potential of the plants. It's even less in most countries of Africa". SUPER CAPTION: Gary Toenniessen, Deputy Director of Agricultural Sciences, Rockefeller Institute, New York In 1994, scientists here at the International Rice Research Organisation in the Philippines claimed to have bred a new, highly productive strain of rice. They believed the new plant could produce yields of up to 25 per cent higher than traditional strains. But it is scientists at the University of California who now claim to have come up with a disease-resistant plant which could increase rice yields by 50 per cent. SOUNDBITE: "So there's reason to believe you could have significant increases in production. Maybe initially 10, 15 per cent, but over time, as this same strategy is used with other pests and pathogens, maybe 50 per cent increase in production. Particularly in countries where the favourite varieties tend to be particularly susceptible to this pathogen. Southern China is a prime example of a location where bacterial blight, the pathogen we're talking about, is a serious problem". SUPER CAPTION: Gary Toenniessen, Deputy Director of Agricultural Sciences, Rockefeller Institute, New York Scientists say many farmers in the world's rice-producing regions can expect to be growing this new type of rice within a year. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/cea9554c786eb14ea5466dad9dae1407 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork