How Basmati in India is reaping the rewards of research

Subject: Science and technology

Section: Biotechnology

Context:

Basmati rice’s annual exports from India have soared, from 0.3-0.35 million tonnes (mt) valued at $200-250 million to 4.5-4.6 mt worth $4.7-4.8 billion, in the past three decades.
Much of this has been courtesy of scientists at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in New Delhi.
Globally, the top rice-producing country is China, followed by India.
India, the world’s biggest rice exporter, accounted for nearly 40 percent of global rice trade in 2022, exporting 22 million tonnes worth $9.66bn to 140 countries.

The first revolution:

Till 1980s: Traditional rice varieties have been grown which were prone to lodging (bending over when heavy with well-filled grains) and yielding barely 10 quintals of paddy an acre. These rice varieties include Taraori (also called Karnal Local or HBC-19) and Dehraduni (Type-3).
Pusa Basmati-1: introduced in 1989. Developed by IARI scientists led by E.A. Siddiq. It was a cross between Karnal Local and Pusa-150, a high-yielding non-basmati line.PB-1 didn’t lodge, yielded 25-26 quintals grain per acre.
PB-1 delivered a yield revolution and helped double India’s basmati exports.

The second revolution:

In 2003: Pusa Basmati-1121 (PB-1121) was released.
PB-1121 yielded less (20-21 quintals/acre) with a slightly longer maturity (140-145 days). But it has an excellent grain quality: The kernel length averaged 8 mm that elongated 2.7 times to about 21.5 mm on cooking. This variety is being sold under the India Gate Classic brand.

The third revolution:

In 2013: IARI released Pusa Basmati-1509 (PB-1509). It yielded just as much as PB-1, with the milled rice length before and after cooking comparable to PB-1121’s. But PB-1509’s seed-to-grain duration was just 115-120 days.
Being an early-maturing high-yielding variety made PB-1509 advantageous for farmers.

Breeding for disease resistance:

PB-1121 has become susceptible to bacterial leaf blight. To control it, the scientists have sought to transfer genes from landrace cultivars and wild relatives of paddy that are resistant to this bacterial disease. Such genes have been identified through a technique called marker-assisted selection.
In 2021, IARI released Pusa Basmati-1885 and Pusa Basmati-1847. These were basically PB-1121 and PB-1509 having “in-built resistance” against bacterial blight as well as rice blast fungal disease. Both of them incorporated two bacterial blight resistant genes Xa21 and xa13, derived from a wild rice species (Oryza longistaminata) and a traditional indica landrace (BJ1) respectively.
They also carried two other genes Pi2 and Pi54 against blast.
Now farmers no longer have to use streptomycin or tetracycline combinations and fungicides such as tricyclazole, azoxystrobin and picoxystrobin.

Risk factors

There’s no minimum support price (MSP) for basmati paddy. Also, its rice is mostly exported with only a limited domestic market.
Basmati grain yields, at 25 quintals per acre, are only marginally below the 30 quintals for normal Parmal (non-basmati) varieties.
The market price of Basmati rice is Rs 3,000/quintal (against the Rs 2,203 MSP for Grade A non-basmati paddy) and corresponding cultivation costs of Rs 30,000 per acre (Rs 25,000).
Export ban of basmati rice is another challenge.