The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is developing high-yielding 'super rices' and urging Asian farmers to protect biological diversity by swapping chemicals for integrated pest management, a move that has brought remarkable success in the Philippines. The 'super rices' will have increased photosynthetic capacity and will direct more energy into grain production, instead of biomass. The Institute is using the resources of its germplasm bank, and using hardy genes gathered in regions such as West Africa. Other challenges are to reduce methane emissions from rice fields and to give the new rice plants resistance to pests by inserting genes from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt).