FAO is hosting an international conference at its headquarters in Rome 12-13 February 2004, entitled Rice in Global Markets and Sustainable Production Systems, which seeks to mobilize the international community to confront the most pressing production constraints and marketing issues facing the global rice sector.

The Conference is a part of the International Year of Rice 2004 (IYR) awareness and action campaign, which was declared by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2002. FAO, as the organizing agency for IYR implementation, views the year as a vehicle for achieving the first of the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which calls for a 50 percent reduction of hunger and poverty by 2015.

Rice is the staple food for over half of the world's population. FAO projections show that, by 2030, total demand for rice will be 38 percent higher than the annual amounts produced between 1997 and 1999. In order to meet future demand, new methodologies and production technologies are necessary because land and water resources are under threat.

Rice, fish and livestock

Of the 840 million people still suffering from chronic hunger, more than 50 percent live in areas dependent on rice production for food, income and employment. Because rice does not contain all the elements necessary for a balanced diet, a key aspect of the IYR is to encourage rice producers to intensify the rice production system and fully exploit their capacity to raise fish and livestock. According to FAO, intensified rice systems will benefit the nutrition and livelihoods of the rice-dependent community, while supporting biodiversity and encouraging the sustainable management of natural resources.

Poor rural farmers account for 80 percent of all rice producers. More than 2 billion people in developing nations depend on the rice-based system for their economic livelihood. According to the IYR Secretariat, this population is generally trapped in poverty because of the inability to tap the potential for agro-intensification, economic policies that favor rice consumers and decreasing support for public rice research. In the past few years, countries have also been confronted with falling prices, an increased competition for markets and a changing policy environment.

Overcoming production constraints

This week's Conference will discuss the challenges posed by the new economic and policy settings. It will highlight efforts that are being made at the national and international levels to overcome major production constraints and will discuss opportunities for increased efficiency and sustainability within the rice-based system. The Conference will also confront issues related to the potential of science and new technologies, such as biotechnology, to improve the efficiency of rice production and will focus on the need to preserve and protect the wide range of genetic resources hosted by rice-based systems.

Dr. Louise Fresco, Assistant Director General to the FAO Agriculture Department, believes that rice-based systems provide "a prism through which the interconnected relationships between agriculture, food security, poverty alleviation, and sustainable development issues can be clearly understood."

The strategy of the Year of Rice is to use the Year as a catalyst for country-driven programmes throughout the world. Dr. Fresco stressed that the Year's success is dependent upon global collaboration and international ownership. "The implications of rice-development directly affect a wide range of stakeholders, from rural farmers and the urban poor to the scientific community and international policy makers, thus rendering the Year a rare opportunity for the global community to work together towards fulfilling the Millennium Goals and the objectives of the World Food Summit. This is an action campaign - a chance for us to make good on our promise to the billions of people for whom 'rice is life.'"

The 2004 campaign will seek to propel increased support to the sustainable development of the rice-based production systems to go beyond 2004. Scientific and photographic contests will be held, and regional and international conferences have been planned around the world. Details can be found at http://www.rice2004.org

The International Rice Research Institute
News about Rice and People
Los Baños, Philippines
February 12, 2004

Asian stability threatened by stagnating rice sector
 
The stability of the Asian region, including the troubled nations of Indonesia and Philippines, is threatened by > the continuing lack of development in the rice sector. Rice farming remains a poverty trap in many Asian nations, mainly because of very small farm size. Adding to the misery of rice growers in the region is declining support for public rice research, one of the few proven avenues for improving the lives of rice farmers and consumers alike.

The United Nations cannot hope to achieve its Millennium Development Goals -- especially in such crucial areas as eradicating poverty and hunger -- unless more is done to improve the livelihoods of poor rice farmers.

Ronald P. Cantrell, director general of the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), said that achieving at least two of the eight goals heavily depends on continued and strengthened research efforts to help farmers grow rice more efficiently, profitably and sustainably. These two goals are eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, and ensuring environmental sustainability.

Recent research has shown that in 1999, for every US$1 million invested at IRRI, more than 800 rural poor in China, and 15,000 rural poor in India, were lifted above the poverty line. These poverty-reduction effects were even greater in earlier years.

Dr. Cantrell, a respected plant breeder, was speaking on the eve of a major conference on rice organized in Rome, Italy, by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Titled "Rice in global markets and sustainable production systems," the conference marks the official launch of FAO activities for International Year of Rice 2004. More information on the conference is available on the FAO's International Year of Rice Web site at www.rice2004.com.

In the early years of the Green Revolution up to the early 1980s, the rice-producing nations of Asia enjoyed annual rice yield increases of 2.5 percent and production gains of over 3 percent. However, between the middle of the 1980s and the late 1990s, the rate of annual yield increase was nearly halved, and the rate of production increase fell even further.

Many rural rice communities in Asia are growing increasingly restless, as productivity stagnation leaves them trapped in poverty and urgently needing new strategies and fresh ideas to help them improve their lives. They are waiting for new technologies to make them more productive and competitive and so lift them out of poverty.

"There is nothing more important to any country than its ability to feed itself," said Dr. Cantrell. "In Indonesia, this means growing enough rice. But, if food security is one essential pillar of national security, another is rural development."

Poverty and a lack of opportunity -- for education, livelihood or simply the chance to lead a happy, healthy life -- can foster instability. Desperate people forced to leave home in search of work are susceptible to extremism; one of the Bali bombers had reportedly left his home village of Tenggulun, East Java, to seek work in Malaysia, where he was recruited by terrorists. While this is a worst-case scenario, such reports should not be discounted. A lack of
opportunity in heavily agricultural Tenggulun has forced 20 percent of its working-age population to leave in search of employment -- a story repeated time and again throughout rural Asia.

"The Asian rice industry is in trouble," Dr. Cantrell said. "At a time of abundant supplies and record low prices, some may laugh at such a statement. But please allow me a few sentences to explain. Not only is the rice industry in Asia facing a crisis in the supply of such essential resources as land, labor and water, but -- most  importantly of all -- many nations are finding it difficult to develop sustainable ways to provide decent livelihoods for rice farmers and consumers."

Dr. Cantrell said this huge challenge comes at a time of collapsing support for public rice research. "While IRRI still has some very committed donors, there is no doubt that the institute could do a lot more if it had more support."

For more than 4 decades, the research system that develops and delivers knowledge and new technologies to Asia's rice farmers has been funded -- and influenced -- mostly by Western nations. But now, having achieved visible success, many of these generous donors are taking their resources elsewhere, such as Africa.

"For those talented Asian scientists who are already being prevented -- some by unemployment -- from using their knowledge to help the region's farmers, this worrying decline in support for rice research has already reached a critical, if not a crisis, level," Dr. Cantrell said.

Fortunately, there is also some good news. In the past 40 years, rice scientists and extensionists have built an impressive network all over Asia. "In many nations, these scientists have as much expertise as their colleagues in the developed world," Dr. Cantrell said. "Asia's rice scientists are world class and have achieved impressive results."

Working at the national, regional and international level -- and at organizations such as IRRI -- these scientists have developed an impressive array of new technologies and strategies by which farmers can improve their lives. This despite underfunding and the persistent shortcomings of networks and mechanisms for delivering new  technologies to farmers.

Dr. Cantrell cited the sequencing of the rice genome as the most important of many exciting new developments in rice research. "This breakthrough is providing us with more scientific knowledge of the rice plant than we have gathered in the 15,000 years of its cultivation."

Other major scientific advances include:

• More nutritious rice. Researchers are developing rice varieties that are rich in such essential micronutrients as iron, zinc and vitamin A, as well as protein.

• Rice that grows with less water. Asia's looming water crisismeans that the traditional use of up to 3,000 liters of water to produce 1 kg of rice is unsustainable, so scientists are working on a new type of dry-field rice.

• Rice that withstands such complex stresses such as drought or saline soils. IRRI's researchers foresee success in developing new technologies for the particularly poor populations of marginal areas.

• Hybrid rice and other varieties that will provide higher yields for farmers and motivate private sector investment in developing improved varieties for farmers.

"All of these breakthroughs have great potential to help poor rice farmers, laborers and consumers," Dr. Cantrell said. "However, in many countries the extension systems for delivering these technologies are chronically underfunded.

"Assuming there are 200 million rice farmers in Asia, an investment of just 40 cents per farmer for each of the next 20 years would go a long way toward ensuring that they can earn a decent living sustainably supplying poor rice consumers with plentiful supplies of affordable, nutritious rice," he said.

"Clearly, finding that much money won't be easy, but if we agree that there is nothing more important in Asia than rice, then the challenge seems a little less daunting -- especially during the International Year of Rice," Dr. Cantrell concluded. "Raising the funds we need will take time and careful thought, but the rewards will be there for all to see in a strong, vibrant rice industry that leads, rather than lags after, other regional industries in technological innovation."

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is the world's leading rice research and training center. Based in the Philippines and with offices in 10 other Asian 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 centers funded through the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), an association of public and private donor agencies. Please visit the Web sites of the CGIAR or Future Harvest Foundation, a nonprofit organization that builds awareness and supports food and environmental research.