[ti:'Green Super Rice' About Two Years Away for Asia, Africa] [ar:Karen Leggett] [al:Agriculture Report] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English [00:02.10]Agriculture Report. [00:04.21]Scientists have worked [00:05.89]for twelve years to develop [00:07.82]what they call Green Super Rice. [00:10.81]They say several varieties [00:12.99]should be available to farmers [00:14.85]about two years from now [00:17.48]in parts of Asia and Africa. [00:20.90]The "green" in Green Super Rice [00:23.64]means environmentally friendly. [00:26.37]Researchers say it will produce [00:28.86]at least as much grain [00:30.54]as other rice plants [00:31.97]but with fewer inputs. [00:33.84]"Super" means the rice is designed [00:37.14]to better resist droughts, floods, [00:40.00]salty water, insects and disease. [00:43.48]The developers of Green Super Rice [00:47.71]did not use genetic engineering. [00:50.70]Instead, they mated [00:53.49]hundreds of varieties of rice. [00:56.05]That way they avoided the costs [00:58.97]as well as the problems connected [01:02.42]with getting permission [01:03.88]to plant genetically engineered crops. [01:07.06]The project involves the world's [01:10.29]largest rice collection, [01:12.16]the International Rice Research [01:15.08]Institute in the Philippines. [01:17.07]It also involves the Chinese [01:20.18]Academy of Agricultural Sciences. [01:23.35]And it includes farmers [01:26.03]in eight countries in Asia [01:28.58]and eight in Africa. [01:30.82]Modern rice plants produce [01:34.50]two to three times [01:36.25]more grain than was possible [01:38.86]before the nineteen sixties. [01:41.35]But they also require [01:43.96]large amounts of water, [01:46.20]chemical fertilizers and pesticides. [01:49.75]In the sixties, the International [01:53.38]Rice Research Institute [01:55.44]developed "miracle rice" for Asia. [01:58.55]Scientists created high-yielding crops [02:02.84]that produced bigger harvests [02:05.58]in what became known as [02:08.25]the Green Revolution. [02:10.05]It prevented widespread hunger. [02:13.35]But critics say modern rice plants [02:18.08]require too much water [02:20.01]and too much use of chemicals [02:23.06]that can hurt the environment. [02:25.67]And farmers may be too poor [02:28.59]to buy chemical fertilizers [02:30.83]and pesticides. [02:33.32]Anna McClung heads [02:36.31]a rice-breeding center for the [02:38.48]United States Agriculture Department. [02:41.10]She says combining many [02:43.96]different genes into one plant [02:45.76]without genetic engineering [02:48.44]requires a lot of plant breeding. [02:51.67]Ms. McClung praises the researchers [02:55.22]working on Green Super Rice. [02:58.14]ANNA McCLUNG: "The magnitude of [02:59.07]what they are doing is really [03:00.56]quite unique and tremendous." [03:02.99]Another rice researcher, [03:04.67]Jan Leach at Colorado State [03:07.84]University, says scientists [03:10.46]can find valuable qualities [03:13.07]hidden in the rice genome. [03:15.74]A genome contains all of the genetic [03:20.10]information about an organism. [03:22.52]JAN LEACH: "Many of the traits are present, [03:24.95]but they are not turned on [03:26.51]until you get them into [03:28.25]the right genetic background, [03:29.24]or sometimes in the right environment." [03:31.23]Researchers on the Green Super Rice project [03:34.90]continue to combine desirable traits [03:38.32]into new varieties to help farmers [03:41.87]produce more with less. [03:44.54]And that's the VOA Special English [03:47.90]Agriculture Report. [03:49.58]You can also watch captioned videos [03:52.88]on YouTube at VOA Learning English. [03:56.80]I'm Karen Leggett.