International Rice Research Institute wins at Asian Innovation Excellence Awards 2025
06 November 2025, Singapore: The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) won the Philippines Sustainability Innovation of the Year – Agriculture and the Vietnam Sustainability Innovation of the Year – Agriculture in the Asian Innovation Excellence Awards 2025 for its work in rice conservation and low-emission cultivation.
In the Philippines, the institute’s International Rice Genebank preserves the world’s largest collection of rice genetic diversity, safeguarding the future of one of humanity’s most important crops. The genebank holds at least 132,000 rice seed samples, including both wild and cultivated varieties. These are stored in carefully controlled vaults and shared globally—free of cost and following internationally accepted guidelines—with researchers, breeders, and farmers to develop rice varieties with improved yield, quality, nutritional content, and climate resilience.
The genebank has distributed more than one million samples worldwide so far, and provides open access to rice genetic data through the IRRI Genesys website. It also trains experts and helps countries build capacity in conserving genetic resources. In 2023, a US$2M grant from Google.org enabled the institute to apply artificial intelligence for rapid identification of rice varieties, accelerating the evaluation of traits such as drought, flood, and salinity tolerance. In 2024, IRRI launched the Released Variety Panel, offering both seeds and genetic data from over 130 modern rice varieties, and deposited over 7,000 rice samples to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway.
Meanwhile, in Vietnam, the institute provides technical support to the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment in the project “Sustainable Development of One Million Hectares of High-Quality and Low-Emission Rice Associated with Green Growth in the Mekong River Delta by 2030.” This large-scale initiative promotes climate-smart farming, bundled with high-productivity, low-emission technologies, such as alternate wetting and drying (AWD), precision mechanized direct seeding combined with fertilizer deep placement, sustainable straw management, and digital advisory, e-extension, value chain match-making, and MRV tools.
Pilot sites across five provinces demonstrated measurable outcomes, including up to 30% less fertilizer use, 40% water savings, and income increases exceeding VND5M per hectare. This year, the program also helped the country with its first export of low-emission rice to Japan, supported by a new national Vietnam Green and Low-Emission Rice label.
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