Bas Bouman and Lanie Reyes   

IRRI Mar 15, 2017

Figure: Cecile Grenier, a Cirad breeder working at CIAT, and Jaime Borrero, a CIAT research associate, inspect a rice field in Bolivia. (Photo: CIAT)

RICE aims to reduce poverty and hunger, improve human health and nutrition, adapt rice-based farming systems to climate change, promote women’s empowerment and youth mobilization, and reduce rice’s environmental footprint.

Rice is the world’s most important staple food and will continue to be so in the coming decades. A staple for some 4 billion people worldwide, rice provides 27% of the calories in developing countries. With expected population growth, income growth, and decline in rice area, global demand for rice will continue to increase, from 479 million tons of milled rice in 2014 to 536–551 million tons in 2030.

Rice farming is associated with poverty. About 900 million of the world’s poor depend on rice as producers or consumers. Of these, some 400 million poor and undernourished people are engaged in growing rice. (See infographics.)

In the future, rice will have to be produced, processed, and marketed in more sustainable and environment-friendly ways, despite the diminishing resources (land, water, labor, and energy) and the problems brought about by climate change. And, we need to produce more per unit of land and water.

Moreover, we still need to improve the nutritional quality of rice-based diets through biofortification, optimizing processing, and dietary diversification.

Women play a significant role in rice farming, processing, marketing, and buying rice for food. Yet, they still have less access to and control over resources such as information and inputs. These inequalities reduce the productivity of women-managed farms. But, with appropriate technological, institutional, and policy support, rice farming, processing, and marketing could offer equal opportunities for employment for both women and men.

Moreover, more youths in some parts of the world are becoming unemployed, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The rural population is aging particularly in Asian countries where structural transformation is rapid. Thus, it is imperative for the rice sector to develop attractive job opportunities for young people.

See more: http://ricetoday.irri.org/continuing-global-partnership-through-rice/