Rice, farmers and gene banks: a case study in the Cagayan Valley, Philippines.

Introduction landraces threatened by the adoption of modern varieties, in order to make them available to all rice genetic resource users. Given the increasing interest in in situ conservation on-farm, the conservation of rice genetic resources must include new research activities in agroecosystems that can lead to a better understanding of what this approach means and how it can be implemented (Bellon et aL, 1997). This is particularly needed in rapidly changing agroecosystems, where the conservation of agrobiodiversity needs to be supported by providing farmers with the appropriate options. This is a matter of urgency. The risk of genetic erosion is higher in agroecosystems submitted to changes in their cultural, economic or technological environment. While cases of coexistence of local and modem varieties are reported for several crops worldwide (see the examples cited in the next section), it does not mean that such 'equilibrium' situations can be reached in all cases, nor are they durable. Furthermore, developing in situ conservation sttategies for rapidly changing agroecosystems i an important issue as it may eventually result in the preservation of diversity and its integration in agricultural development policies in much larger areas than those of ttaditional agroecosystems. The current debate on the release of transgenic crops is a useful reminder of how complex the deployment of new varieties is. Not only must the expected benefits be taken into account but also all the potential consequences at very different levels: agroecological, social, economic and political. Long before genetically modified organisms, the release of semi-dwarf high yielding varieties by rice breeders had a tremendous impact on the life of rice farmers and consumers. The first modern rice variety, IR8, was released in 1966. In Asia, rice production increased by 114% betWeen 1966 and 1996, surpassing the 82% population increase during the same period (Hossain and Pingali, 1998). The breeding of high-yielding varieties made this increase possible, but was also associated with dramatic changes in rice farming practices and economy. The release of modern rice varieties has had an impact on which varieties rice farmers grow, why they grow them and how they grow them. For a long time, only the first point really mattered to genetic resources conservationists, as ex situ conservation was receiving most of their attention. Priority was given to the collection of local