Due to greed, farmers reap what they sow – literally

PETALING JAYA: Clearfield rice was based on technology first commercialised in the United States to combat the weed problem in rice fields.

Its success in overcoming this problem saw it widely adopted in South America and Italy.

Malaysia jumped on the bandwagon in 2003 and took seven years to perfect the pre-existing strain to suit the local environment.

Research to find the local solution was undertaken by Malaysian Agri­cul­tural Research and Development Institute (Mardi) and chemical giant BASF Malaysia.

It was launched in 2010 with two variations – CL1 and CL2.

The two new strains can outlive the herbicide used to control and eliminate weedy rice at the beginning of the padi planting season.

However, there are specific requirements and recommendations when planting the variations.

To prevent cross-breeding, Clearfield cannot be planted for more than two cycles in a season.

However, padi farmers here did not follow the above recommendations.

Three years after it was first planted, there were already signs of abuse by padi farmers.

It took two years of extensive research to confirm the findings, but by the time the result showed that it had cross-bred with weedy rice, it was already too late to reverse the adverse effects.

It was also near impossible to start from scratch again as most fields in the country had already started using Clearfield and were affected by the cross-breeding.