CGIAR News

The CGIAR Research Program on Rice (RICE) is a forward-looking, holistic, global partnership that focuses on the win-win proposition of the social, economic, and environmental sustainability aspects of rice.

RICE is a collaborative partnership that cuts across all components of the rice sector and aims to deliver impact for a sustainable future.

RICE fosters impact-driven rice research and development to reduce poverty and hunger, improve human health and nutrition, promote gender equity, and enhance ecosystem resilience in rice production systems. It harnesses 600 research and development partners from both the public and private sector to deliver measurable impacts on the overall goals of CGIAR.

RICE facilitates the transition of smallholder rice farmers to modern business entrepreneurship by exploiting opportunities offered by market diversification and the emergence of a stronger consumer demand for quality and nutritious rice products. At the same time, it assists poor farmers to cope with extreme stresses and the effects of climate change. In doing so, RICE will be at the cutting edge of science and will mobilize modern technological breakthroughs offered by biotechnology, ICT, and Big Data.

Impacts by 2022

Through R&D in collaboration with its many partners, RICE expects to:

• help at least 13 million rice consumers and producers, half of them female, to exit poverty by 2022, and another 5 million by 2030
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• assist at least 17 million people, half of them female, out of hunger by 2022, rising to 24 million by 2030
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• assist at least 8 million people, half of them female, to meet their daily zinc requirements from rice by 2022, rising to 18 million by 2030

These outcomes will become possible by:

• helping at least 17 million more households to adopt improved rice varieties and farming practices by 2022 and a further 19 million by 2030
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• improving the annual genetic gain in rice (as measured in breeders’ trials) to at least 1.3% by 2022, rising to 1.7% by 2030
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• helping increase annual global milled rice production of 479 million tons in 2014 to at least 536 million tons by 2022 and to 544 million tons by 2030
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• increasing water- and nutrient-use eciency in rice-based farming systems by at least 5% by 2022, rising to 11% by 2030
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• helping reduce agriculture-related greenhouse gas emissions in rice-based farming systems by at least 28.4 of megatons carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent/year by 2022 and by a further 28.4 megatons of CO2 equivalent/year by 2030, compared to business-as-usual scenarios

See https://www.cgiar.org/research/program-platform/rice/