An international effort has been launched to renew focus on the development of sustainable strategies to feed the half of the world's population that depends on rice.

The move was announced at the World Rice Research Conference held in Japan on 4-7 November. The event is a highlight of the International Year of Rice 2004, which the United Nations declared to focus international attention on the enormous challenges facing global rice production, especially guaranteeing the food security of 3 billion rice consumers despite the erosion of such vital agricultural resources as land, labor and water.

The Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) announced details of its new Environmental Agenda at the World Rice Research Conference. IRRI described it as one of the most important initiatives launched in the International Year of Rice and a new approach to sustainable development in Asia and other rice-producing regions.

Rice covers almost 150 million hectares worldwide. As one of the most widely planted crops, it has a profound impact on the environment and natural resources. IRRI's new Environmental Agenda focuses on seven key challenges directly connected to continued efforts to produce the rice the world needs each day - and to do so sustainably. They are:

1. Poverty and the environment
2. Farm chemicals and residues
3. Land use and degradation
4. Water use and quality
5. Biodiversity
6. Climate change
7. The use of biotechnology

"Each of these issues is crucial to rice production and efforts to ensure that the 800 million rice consumers who are trapped in poverty in Asia can get access to the rice they need to feed themselves and their families," said IRRI Director General Ronald P. Cantrell. "As international rice prices jumped this year by a surprising 40 percent because of shortages in some countries, we are reminded that we cannot take Asia's ability to feed itself for granted. If we do, millions will suffer because of our complacency."

Since the start of the Green Revolution - which began in Asia with IRRI's release in 1966 of IR8, the first modern, high-yielding semidwarf rice variety - the global rice harvest has more than doubled, racing slightly ahead of population growth. This increased production and the resulting lower prices for rice across Asia have been the most important results of the higher yields that rice research and new farming technologies have made possible.

Around 1,000 modern varieties - approximately half the number released in South and Southeast Asia over the last 38 years - are linked to varieties developed by IRRI and its partners. These modern varieties and the resulting increase in production have brought national food security to most countries in Asia. The increased availability of rice has pushed down world market rice prices by 80 percent over the last 20 years, greatly benefiting poor rice consumers, urban slum-dwellers and landless farm workers alike. Farmers have also benefited as improved efficiency has lowered unit cost and increased profit.

So, why is more rice research needed? Two major challenges confront rice farming now and well into the 21st century - and particularly in Asia. The first is for nations to meet their national and household food security needs with an ever-declining natural resource base, especially regarding water and land. How current annual rice production of 545 million tons can be increased to 700 million tons to feed an additional 650 million rice consumers by 2025, using less water and less land, is indeed one of the great challenges facing Asia.

The second - as has been eloquently stated by the United Nations as one of its eight Millennium Development Goals - is the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger. Rice is so central to the lives of most Asians that any solution to global poverty and hunger must include research that helps poor Asian farmers reduce their risks and earn a decent profit while growing rice that is still affordable to poor consumers.

"The good news is that much of Asia has joined the doubly green revolution, as we announced only last week at another conference in Mexico," Dr. Cantrell said. "This new revolution is already providing farmers in China, Vietnam and Bangladesh with exciting, environmentally sustainable strategies to help them grow the rice they need to feed their families and make a decent living.

"But this is not enough," Dr. Cantrell warns. "Rice production in Asia and elsewhere in the world faces crises on several fronts."

In presentations earlier this year to the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), IRRI warned that the region faces huge challenges in three vitally important areas: chronic water shortages, the looming impact of global warming, and inadequately trained and increasingly scarce human resources.

"We presented a 10-year, 3-point plan to ASEAN to help the nations involved overcome these problems because, if they fail, the whole region will suffer," Dr. Cantrell stressed.

With the launch of its new Environmental Agenda at the World Rice Research Conference in Japan this week, IRRI has put into place the strategies Asia needs to guarantee its food security, a prerequisite for continued economic growth.

"We must be passionate and unrelenting in targeting hunger and poverty," Dr. Cantrell said. "But at the same time we must focus on sustainable solutions to such problems and learn from the lessons of the past."

The Environmental Agenda is posted at www.irri.org/docs/IRRIEnvironmentalAgenda.pdf