World distribution of visitors in January 2009. Source: Clustrmaps
World distribution of visitors in June 2009. Source: Clustrmaps
The Ricehoppers blog was initiated in December 2008 as a platform for sharing knowledge on issues and developing sustainable ways to manage rice planthoppers. The niche blog is part of a collaborative research network with national scientists in Asia co-funded by IRRI and ADB. Visitors to the blog have now surpassed 10,000.
Rice planthoppers continue to be problematic, especially in intensive rice production areas because it is a pest that is induced when ecosystem services are compromised. Planthopper outbreaks are thus indicators of unsustainable practices. The most recent reports of outbreaks are from China (Hainan, Yunnan), Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam.
The search for sustainable ways to manage these problems is now along several fronts. First is to identify genes and develop rice varieties that will have sustainable resistance to planthoppers. Second is to develop ecological engineering methods that will restore and enhance important ecosystem services to provide adequate crop health. Third is to understand farmers’ decision making and to develop communication strategies to motivate policy decision makers and farmers to adopt sustainable practices.
If you have some observations, experiences, news or research results, please send us a post to share with our bloggers. You can email them to m.escalada@gmail.com.
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I think legislation has played an important role in the case of Bt, but I also think that better marketing through private sector channels has been a major factor. In contrast, when a modern rice variety is released through the common public sector system, it is equipped with some general information about its features, but insufficient effort is being made by the public sector extension system to pro-actively market such a variety, the required management of it, and also train farmers in its “proper use”. That is at least the perception I have. I’m not sure whether it is correct, but I think it is fair to assume that there are huge differences between the public and the private sector when it comes to marketing products for use by farmers. We should probably acknowledge that we in the public sector need to do better and probably also learn such skills from the private sector.
I fully agree that understanding farmers’ attitudes is of great importance, but we must use that knowledge pro-actively in designing better deployment strategies.. That is what I meant with looking forward. I hope this can be accomplished in the coming years.