NEW YORK, July 27, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- This week's Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition centerpiece will focus on the building pressures facing rice and other agricultural products, especially in Asia. After years of healthy gains in crop production, farmers are now constrained in their ability to increase yields.
In the 1960s, a rapid-growing rice strain, IR8, became a key part of the Green Revolution, a global boom in agriculture that fed the world for decades. Today, that revolution is largely played out here and elsewhere. Rice yields are flat-lining; over-production has exhausted the soil and water shortages abound. The price of the world's most eaten food is rising steeply, up about 70% since 2001 according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The construction of factories, apartment blocks and highways is paving over usable land in China, India and Indonesia. India has under-invested in agriculture for decades as it fostered its high-tech services and manufacturing industries. Climate change may be playing a role, too, by increasing the frequency of extreme droughts and floods. The Green Revolution's benefits reverberated well beyond food, allowing developing nations like India to set aside fears of famine and focus more on building modern economies by investing in other industries. But now economists worry the lack of new advances in agriculture is starting to weigh on growth in India and elsewhere, and could force governments to divert more resources back to agriculture or face slower growth in the years ahead.
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is scrambling to overcome these problems by breathing new life into the revolution. Strategies of researchers from IRRI are conducting a variety of experiments such as, testing rice seed varieties that can withstand droughts or floods and attempting to alter the way rice plants perform photosynthesis. The scientists acknowledge that it is an uphill battle to find breakthroughs, but they hope that experimentation will yield a breakthrough that will make a big difference.
"Although rice yields per acre are still inching up worldwide -- by about 1% a year, says the USDA, the rate of increase has slowed considerably since the 1970s and 1980s, as gains from high-tech seeds developed in the 1960s and afterwards peter out," writes Journal reporter Patrick Barta in this week's Weekend Edition. "Stocks of rice -- which is responsible for one fifth of the world's caloric intake -- are at their lowest levels since the 1970s when global food shortages led to temporary famines in Asia."
Additional stories appearing in this week's Weekend Edition of the Wall Street Journal include the following:
Money & Investing:
* What Are Value Stocks Really Worth: If a slowdown is at hand, then value stocks usually lead the way out of a recession. Although this may not happen this time because the stocks have performed so well, plus they're not really cheap to purchase. * Hedge Fund Firms Taking a Beating: Lately the credit-market turmoil is hurting certain hedge-fund firms. Already, Sowood Capital Management has sustained significant bond losses and is down about 10% so far this year.
Pursuits:
* Carbon Neutral Travelers: Being carbon neutral is hard enough in the home -- it's even more difficult for travelers who want to feel good about their "green" behavior but also want to go on vacation in style. What does a low-carbon vacation mean? Changing your lifestyle or just buying indulgences in the form of carbon credits? The Journal goes to a low-carbon resort to find out what it means. * Uncut Diamonds: Jewelers ranging from Cartier to a small maker called Diamond in the Rough are pushing uncut diamonds as the latest way for the uber-rich to express their chic-ness in a subtle way. The uncut diamonds do not resemble diamonds at all, and only the wearer knows the stone's authenticity.
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Editor's Note: WSJ reporters are available to discuss these topics.