Los Baños, Philippines
December 17, 2002

What slender reed supports the globe as its pivotal economic activity, feeding half of humanity on a daily basis and providing hundreds of millions of poor families with their main and most stable source of income?

For the two billion plus residents of the world's two most populous nations - China and India - and for the other hundreds of millions of people in East, Southeast and South Asia, the answer is literally on the tip of their tongues. For those of us who may not have guessed that the answer is rice, help is at hand. The newly published Rice Almanac tells for the first time the complete and remarkable story of rice. The daily food of an estimated 2.7 billion people, it is the foundation of national stability and economic growth across Asia. Because it occupies nine percent of Earth's arable land, it is also a key area of concern - and of opportunity - in environmental protection.

Open the Rice Almanac to find more. Rice and its production are:

• the source of one quarter of global food energy and, for the world's poor, the largest food source;
• the single largest use of land for producing food;
• the biggest employer and income generator for rural people in the developing world;
• mentioned in the scriptures of all known ancient civilizations;
• grown on 250 million farms in Asia, most of them smaller than one hectare.

These are some of the reasons that The Washington Post newspaper last year described rice production as arguably the single most important economic activity on Earth. Yet rice farming remains one of the least developed and most under-resourced and technology-deprived industries in the world.

"One of the aims of publishing the Rice Almanac is to show people just how important rice is to the world and to all of us - even to those of us who don't eat it every day," said Ronald P. Cantrell, director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). IRRI is one of the co-publishers of the book along with the West Africa Rice Development Association, the Colombia-based Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical, and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

"People need to realize not just that rice is essential as a major food source, but also that it has a vitally important role to play in eradicating poverty, protecting the environment and serving as the cultural foundation for some of the world's most populous societies," Dr. Cantrell explained. "Yet rice production remains one of the most neglected industries in the world."

In Asia, rice typically accounts for half of the income of rice-farming households. Therefore, research that helps farmers grow rice more efficiently and profitably will directly boost their productivity and
thereby enhance their ability to climb out of poverty. As rice provides more than half the calories and protein in the diets of the Asian poor, making rice more nutritious - especially in terms of providing such vital micronutrients as vitamin A, iron and zinc - will help alleviate the "hidden hunger" that hobbles the malnourished.

Finally, growing rice is the dominant land use in Asia, accounting for more than 30 percent of the cropped area in nearly all regions of the continent - and more than 60 percent in many of the poorest countries. Research to help rice farmers use fertilizers and pesticides more sparingly and efficiently will curtail their escape into commercial, residential and natural areas, greatly serving the cause of environmental protection.

"These are just a few of the examples of what could be achieved by a greater investment in rice research, and these examples are mostly in Asia," Dr. Cantrell said, adding that the Rice Almanac shows rice now playing an increasingly important role in Africa as well. For example, Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, has almost doubled its rice imports in the past decade, while at the same time quadrupling the cropping area planted to rice. In Madagascar, off the southeastern coast of Africa, people receive from 40 to 60 percent of their calories and protein from rice.

In the South American country of Brazil, which ranks as the world's 10th biggest rice producer, rice supplies 14 percent of the calories and 10 percent of the protein in the national diet.

"When you look closely at the international situation, especially in the developing world, it's almost impossible to overstate the importance of rice," Dr. Cantrell said. "And of course when you look at Asia, you only have to be reminded of the common expression that 'rice is life' to realize how absolutely essential this small, simple plant is to the region."

An international research effort led by Japan to map the genetic makeup of rice is providing further evidence - if more were needed - of the extraordinary significance of rice. Scientists now confirm that the relatively small and tractable rice genome can be read as a model for the larger genomes of other cereal crops. By choosing rice as the first major crop plant for genome sequencing, scientists have paved the way for further breakthroughs in agriculture and health.

"We are confident that we can take what we learn from the rice genome and apply it to other important crops such as wheat and maize," Dr. Cantrell said. "It's a model plant that scientists around the world are using for research."

All of these points and many more are detailed and explained in the Rice Almanac. "What we aimed to produce was the complete source book on rice," explained Gene Hettel, one of the almanac's editors. "This means that anyone - journalists, students, government officials, researchers, NGO workers - can have correct and up-to-date information on rice at their fingertips."

Need to know more about the estimated 85,000 different types of rice and where they come from? Some of the oldest signs of cultivated rice have turned up in northeastern Thailand, dating back almost 10,000 years. Need to know which country is the world's largest rice grower? China when measured in tons, but India when measured by area. What about which country depends most on rice? In terms of calories consumed, it's Myanmar, followed by Laos and then Vietnam.

"Rice is an extraordinary crop with an even more extraordinary story to tell," Mr. Hettel observed. "We hope the Rice Almanac will help people to understand this better."

IRRI is the world's leading international rice research and training center. Based in the Philippines and with offices in 11 other countries, it is an autonomous, nonprofit institution focused on improving the well-being of present and future generations of rice farmers and consumers, particularly those with low incomes, while preserving natural resources. IRRI is one of 16 Future Harvest centers funded the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), an association of public and private donor agencies.

For more information, visit the websites of CGIAR or Future Harvest. Future Harvest is a nonprofit organization that builds awareness and supports food and environmental research for a world with less poverty, a healthier human family, well-nourished children and a better environment. Future Harvest supports research, promotes partnerships and sponsors projects that bring the results of agricultural
research to rural communities, farmers and families in Africa, Latin America and Asia.