By Danilo P. Padua, PhD

More than ten years ago, we started to export our traditional rice to the USA through the pioneering efforts of Mary Hensley, a former Peace Corp Volunteer, and Vicky Garcia, an enterprising local. Two years ago, Hensley and Garcia stopped exporting such traditional rice, which they termed heirloom rice.
Initially, I had qualms about the use of the term, heirloom, since it normally relates to material culture but not to crops or animals. That’s why we did not use the term in our own research on such kind of rice. Have you heard about heirloom banana, heirloom tamaraw, or heirloom tarsier? It appears awkward! But here we are, heirloom is now appended to rice to denote that such rice is an indigenous, unimproved and traditional type of rice. It is now embraced by some people, including those in the research and academic fields. I just don’t know if we will ever have the term, heirloom chicken or heirloom corn!
Back to heirloom rice. Why was the export of this type of rice stopped, when farmers are already warming up to its production? I don’t know the reasons why. Maybe we can ask people like Dr. Ron Odsey, an assistant regional director of DA-CAR and head honcho of CHARMP 2. Or, Mr. Robert Domoguen, the head of DA-CAR RIFAS in CAR. You might elicit different versions from them.
What is clear is that there is now a DA-PHILRICE-IRRI Heirloom Rice Project that came into being about two years ago. Other research/academic institutions including state universities and colleges in CAR are now part of the current effort to promote heirloom rice production and consumption.
The development of new improved and high yielding varieties by IRRI and Philrice almost pushed our different heirloom rice into the precipice of extinction. They, in fact, became marginalized and commercially neglected. They were only seen as a footnote to our rice production. They were collected only as part of genebanks which could be used for breeding or other special purposes in the future. In the process though, they are also saved from disappearance.
The tenacity and determination of the people to hold on to something precious that they may call their own actually saved the day for the heirloom rice. Thanks to the development of an export market by enterprising individuals, together with the increasing appreciation of their health benefits, our DA and IRRI eventually took notice of their commercial value.
Some parts of Mindanao such as Cotabato have significant areas for heirloom rice production but CAR has the greatest concentration of heirloom rice varieties in the country, with more than 300. The current efforts therefore to make heirloom rice production commercially successful will mean a great deal for CAR, and by extension, to the country as a whole. It will ultimately redound to the benefit of the rice industry itself. By success, we mean that this rice will be a continuing, satisfactory source of livelihood of the people, especially the farmers. It could be as a healthy food or as part of a package for agri-tourism.
It seems that the DA-PHILRICE-IRRI Heirloom Rice Project is a step to the right direction. Never mind if it came only after some headway was achieved by concerned private individuals. It is now addressing the gaps needed to improve, promote, and be a good source of income of this special type of rice, for the people. Among others, existing heirloom or traditional rices are now being characterized in a coordinated effort, their resistance to disease and tolerance of environmental stresses now being attended to. In addition, the capacity of local farming communities to handle this rice type is being enhanced. An important aspect of the project is the identification of opportunities for value addition and creation of market linkages for these heirloom rice varieties.
What’s more, local communities are part of the monitoring, and evaluation of project impact. In fact, the communities are consulted via baseline surveys as reference for future courses of action. Protection of the rights of a community as owners of the rices is also one of the vital components of the project. All of these should redound to a better, more purposeful conduct of the project. Ultimately, it will result to a better economic status for concerned farming communities.
I have already witnessed how this project is going along when a team of experts (am part of it) travelled to Bontoc, Mtn Province last week to evaluate some researches. The Mountain Province State Polytechnic College is now contributing to the realization of the aforementioned project. Other SUCs in the region of course, are now doing their share.
While there, I had a chance to talk to Dr. Odsey. One of the things that he told me is that, they are now concretizing some of the aims of the project such as establishing cooperatives for heirloom rice farmers. There are now, according to him, at least four of such coops including the original one based in Ifugao. Export to the U.S. may have been temporarily stopped but soon, it will eventually reopen with additional foreign markets, Dr. Odsey noted.
It appears that local market is also on the rise due to health considerations. There is also an increasing trend in the use of heirloom rice in chefs’ menus in countries such as Hong Kong, Japan, USA and Philippines. It may not be long when heirloom rice will occupy its proper niche in the rice industry in the country.**