Scientists find lifesaver for India rice that doesn't have to be
cooked
By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi
Thursday, 17 September 2009
[The new strain of rice offers
hope for malnourished children in India]
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/scientists-find-lifesaver-\
for-india-ndash-rice-that-doesnt-have-to-be-cooked-1788718.html?action=P\
opup> The new strain of rice offers hope for malnourished children in
India
It sounds too good to be true. But if Indian scientists are correct,
hundreds of millions of people across the subcontinent could benefit
from a specially-developed strain of rice that "cooks" simply by being
soaked in water.
Experts at the Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI) in Orissa who have
developed the grain were inspired by so-called soft rice, or komal saul,
that grows in the north-east Indian state of Assam. Traditional recipes
call for such rice to be soaked overnight in water, then eaten with
mustard oil and onions.
Until now, these low-yielding grains have not grown outside the
north-east, but the scientists at CRRI have managed to develop a hybrid
of a traditional soft rice with a high-yielding variety of regular rice.
The result has been called Aghunibora.
The institute's director, Dr TP Adhya, said field trials of the new
hybrid were already positive, suggesting that it could be grown in
different climates across India. "This is the first time soft rice has
been grown anywhere else," he said. "We are testing it now and it is
growing here in Orissa where the humidity is very high and the
temperature range is higher than in Assam."
The aim, he said, was to produce a grain that would allow people across
the country to prepare the rice "simply by putting it in water". In a
country where malnutrition remains rampant, the grains could prove a
crucial weapon against hunger. For all of the advances made by India's
economy since the liberalisation of the early 1990s, the country has a
third of the world's malnourished children.
A report by the UK-based Institute of Development Studies said that
while India's GDP per capita grew by an average of 4 per cent between
1980 and 2005, the percentage of underweight children under three fell
from just 52 to 46 over the same period.
"Normally, we expect economic growth and improved nutrition to go
hand-in-hand but at the current rate India will not reach the Millennium
Development Goal to reduce the number of people suffering from
hunger by 50 per cent by 2015 until 2043," the report said. "By
failing to reach this target, the Indian government is condemning a
further generation to the brain damage, poorer education and early death
that result from malnutrition."
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