MAHSURI (colombo plan)

Hybrid rice research to find the best rice variety with high productivity continued after World War II. In the 1960s, rice breeding research became known in Asia because the International Rice Research Institute was established by the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, starting a new chapter in agriculture called the Green Revolution. This agricultural revolution is often recognized as an American influence, erasing Japanese colonial scientific developments in rice breeding. However, both had the same intention: to use their political power in science and technology to deprive farmers of autonomy, making them dependent on the state through fertilizers and seeds.

In the 1950s, Japanese colonial science continued with its membership in the Colombo Plan. Grounded in its need to rebuild economic ties with Asia and pay its debt to the former colonial and occupied territories in Asia, Japanese agronomists flew to Malaysia to develop a new, higher-yield, double-crop rice variety with low photoperiod sensitivity that could be planted in the dry season. 

Mahsuri was born as a product of Japan-Malaysian development aid through the Colombo Plan of the Commonwealth Nations. It was hybrid rice from  genetic parent Taichung 65, a high-yield Japonica variety developed by Japanese agronomists in colonial Taiwan in the 1920s. Mahsuri was highly popular and occupied 42% of all rice fields in Malaysia at its peak in 1973. According to the International Rice Commission, the development of Mahsuri was the biggest success in its first forty years. Mahsuri’s offspring, such as Sona Masoori, are still planted widely in Malaysia and India today.

Reference:
Hiromi Mizuno (2020) Mutant rice and agricultural modernization in Asia, History and Technology, 36:3-4, 360-381, DOI: 10.1080/07341512.2020.1862991