The Release Of IR8 Miracle Rice
- Date
- 1966
- Category
- Science, technology & invention
- Region
- Southeast Asia (Philippines)
- Era
- Contemporary
- Significance
In 1966 the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines released IR8, a high-yielding "miracle rice" that transformed food production across Asia and became a linchpin of the Green Revolution.
Developed at the institute's Los Baños campus by an international team, IR8 was a cross between a tall Indonesian variety and a dwarf strain from Taiwan, producing a short, sturdy plant that resisted lodging and responded dramatically to fertiliser and irrigation. Where traditional rice yielded one or two tonnes per hectare, IR8 could produce four or five, and under ideal conditions far more, roughly doubling or tripling harvests. Introduced to the Philippines and India within months of its release, it spread rapidly through national extension programmes and helped several Asian nations avert the mass famines that experts had grimly predicted for the region. The gains came with trade-offs, including heavier dependence on fertilisers, pesticides, and irrigation, and concerns over declining crop diversity. Still, IR8 reshaped agriculture for billions, and its descendants remain foundational to feeding much of the world's population.
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Empires active in 1966
- Soviet Union1922 CE – 1991 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
- Dutch Empire1581 CE – 1975 CE
Related science, technology & invention events
- Green Revolution Transforms South Asian Agriculturec. 1966 (peak adoption mid-1960s onward)
- Apollo 11 Moon landing20 July 1969 (mission 16–24 July 1969)
- Intel Releases the 4004, the First Commercial Microprocessor1971
- Invention of the integrated circuit1958–1959
- Launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite4 October 1957
- The Apple II Launches the Personal Computer Era1977
Further reading
The wider story
A Little History of Science
Warm, jargon-free tour of discovery from Babylonian stargazers to the genome.
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