“60 Years Of Continuous Rice Research – What Has IRRI Learned About Rice Farming & Climate Change? Asking For A Friend!” – Frank A Hilario

An agriculturist and a wide reader, I learned about the Long-Term Continuous Cropping Experiment (LTCCE) of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) maybe 1965, but from then IRRI had not attracted me to learn more about it. So why do I write about it now? Today, I want to relate the LTCCE results with rice communities combatting Climate Change.

From 2 IRRI websites – lte.irri.organd irri.org/long-term-experiments– I have found a total of about 1K (1,000) words as IRRI’s report on those continuous studies, from at least 120 croppings. Whatever IRRI’s justification for so many years of studies with so few words to report? Asking for a friend!

About IRRI’s Long -Term Experiments (LTE), the website says (lte.irri.org):

Inspired by the Green Revolution, IRRI proactively begun looking at the sustainability of intensive rice cropping systems in the 1960s with the long-term vision of determining the interactions among different components of the rice ecosystem.

And what are those interactions (plural) among different components of the rice ecosystem? I cannot find any digital report.

IRRI has always been at the forefront of rice research using more advanced rice varieties, fertilizer management, irrigation approaches, and modern pest control methods in its Long-Term Continuous Cropping Experiment (LTCCE). It is among the few "classical" long-term experiments, being the world's longest-running triple rice cropping experiment. After almost 60 years, IRRI is still leading in what is now called sustainable agricultural intensification.

IRRI’s LTE Operations Team “manages the long-term experiments;” the LTE Oversight Committee “oversees and provides scientific leadership in the evolution of long-term experiments of IRRI.”

Now then, I ask the LTE Operations Team what justifies the LTE itself? I ask the Oversight Committee: “In these Climate Change times with so much greenhouse gases (GHGs) generated in ricefields dedicated to chemical agriculture – that IRRI ricefields are – what makes chemical agriculture intensification sustainable?”

Today, as an agriculturist and educator (BSA Ag Edu, UPLB '65), and a communicator for village development in the 21^st century (CoViD21), my original concept since 1980 – today I want to challenge IRRI rice scientists to set up 2 side-by-side experimental 1-ha plot each:

hybrid rice X cultivated with IRRI’s best suite of technologies & systems, plus any chemical fertilizer(s);
hybrid rice X cultivated with my original “Organic Rotavator Weeds-Enriched Automatic Layer of Trash Triggering Terrestrial Health” (Organic Rotavator WEALTh) – zero fertilizer.

With my self-generated rotavator WEALTh, we will compare that which is the better system – Chemical Farming or Organic Farming – in terms of costs & returns: (a) kg grains and (b) production cost/kg grains. IRRI can use whatever kind, number and amount of chemical fertilizers they wish, no problem.

Will IRRI consent to this comparative short-term study, say 1 year? I hope so!

For CoViD21. Whatever, IRRI should learn what it has failed to learn in the last 15 years when Climate Change became the topic of the day and what Chemical Agriculture has been contributing to it in terms of greenhouse gases generated in those ricefields: Yes?@517