India’s Contribution to Rice Development in South and South East Asia

India’s National Agricultural Research and Extension System (NARES) is one of the largest public-sector agricultural research systems in the world. It comprises more than 100 national agricultural research institutes/centres/project directories under the direct control of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) at the central level, as well as about 70 state agricultural universities (SAUs). The ICAR is designated by the union government as the national nodal agency for the NARES. About 32,000 agricultural scientists work within the NARES: nearly 6,000 in ICAR institutions, and another 26,000 in SAUs.

Among the ICAR institutes, two premier institutions, the Indian Institute of Rice Research (IIRR; previously known as the Directorate of Rice Research), Hyderabad, and the National Rice Research Institute (previously known as the Central Rice Research Institute), Cuttack, are exclusively devoted to basic and strategic research in rice. Another two national institutions, the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, and the Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, Karnal, have major rice research programmes as part of their research agenda. At the state level, there are nearly 100 small- and medium-sized rice research stations under the SAUs, working on rice improvement in diverse production environments throughout the country. About 850 scientists from both the ICAR and the SAUs work exclusively on rice improvement under these diverse production environments (Janaiah and Hossain 2004).