Rice expert welcomes spotlight on food
LOS BANOS, Philippines (Reuters) - Robert Zeigler hasn't had much time for scuba diving this year, but he's not complaining.
Journalists from around the world have converged on Zeigler's office in Los Banos, a lush university town south of the Philippine capital Manila, looking for explanations and solutions to a dramatic run-up in rice prices that many fear will tip millions back into poverty.
As director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the U.S.-born scientist is in a unique position to provide some answers.
The grain that feeds half the world's population has dominated Zeigler's career, on and off, for over 20 years.
As a Peace Corps volunteer in Congo in the early 1970s, Zeigler witnessed first-hand how the failure of a crucial crop, cassava, could cause starvation.
With that as his background, Zeigler has been trying for years to highlight the risk of hunger from flattening rice yields and ever-increasing demand.
His passion about the subject, and his willingness to be blunt to get his point across, is apparent to everyone who meets him.
"How can I be polite about this?" the 57-year-old father-of-three, who describes himself as a hopeless optimist, wondered aloud in a recent interview when asked what he thought of the arguments against genetically modified food crops.
"Oh why start now," he chuckled, before letting loose with a typically forthright response.
Zeigler's experience in the former Zaire convinced the Pennsylvania native, whose white beard makes him a ringer for Santa Claus, that science is a key part of the answer to global food shortages.
Zeigler studied plant pathology at Cornell University and worked with Peter Jennings, one of the founding fathers of the green revolution in rice.
The green revolution, kick-started at IRRI in the 1960s, resulted in the development of high-yielding rice varieties that are estimated to have saved millions of Asians from famine and allowed the region to industrialize.
Zeigler, who first joined IRRI in 1992, believes a sequel is now urgently needed and is convinced it is possible through research, technology and effective communication with farmers.
Since becoming head of IRRI in 2005, Zeigler has emphasized agricultural technology, including genetically modified seeds, as a means of combating plateauing yields, drought, scarcity of water and malnourishment.
The use of transgenic technology in food crops is controversial and IRRI's tech-heavy focus has been criticised by environmental groups, some of whom deride the results as "Frankenfood".
Zeigler passionately defends the institute's research into GM organisms, dismissing as unscientific arguments that the technology is harmful and arguing that to ignore its possible contribution to raising farm output is irresponsible and possibly amoral in a world still plagued by starvation.
People who have worked at IRRI praise Zeigler for his ability to negotiate this political minefield without losing sight of the issues and the solutions he holds dear.
"I think he is able to listen, to digest problems that are raised to him and really pay attention to them," said Kwanchai Gomez, executive director of The Asia Rice Foundation, who left IRRI in 1997. "He deals well with people."
(Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Alex Richardson)
