ABSTRACT
Rice is arguably the most important crop on earth. It is the primary food for over three billion people or roughly half the world’s population, and it is projected that by 2025 as many as 4.6 billion people, largely in Asia, will depend on rice for their survival (Gaglioti 2005, BBC 2002, Fikes 2001). As such, rice farming is considered to be one of the most important economic activities on earth underpinning the survival of many populations and economies. Until recently, increases in rice production have kept pace with global demand. However continued rice sufficiency is being challenged by a net decrease in available arable land, particularly as populations continue to expand and urbanise, and the increasing instability of the global environment through climate change (IRRI 2007, Childs 2004: 3, 20, Khush 2001: 11). With this in mind, scientists, policymakers, and farmers are faced with the question: How do we feed more people on less land, with less water, in an increasingly unstable environment? The answer for many is in agricultural genetics or rather a ‘second green revolution based on advanced plant biotechnology and plant genomics’ (Matsumoto et al. 2001: 28). Since 2001, four research initiatives have released draft sequences of the rice genome. The Beijing Genomics Institute and agricultural giants Monsanto and Syngenta prepared the first three drafts, and a Japanese led international consortium, the International Rice Genome Sequencing Project (IRGSP), undertook the final and most complete sequence. While these were initially separate endeavours, the data produced by BGI, Monsanto and Syngenta, was eventually directed into the larger IRGSP project, which significantly enhanced the pace, detail and cost of the consortium’s research. By 2005, with all data deposited in public databases, rice had become the first food, and only second plant, to have its genome fully sequenced, representing a major milestone in agricultural and genomic research.
