IRRI: Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Last October 23–27, a meeting on “Rice Flagship Project 2” was held at the CIRAD office in Montpellier, France. The objective of the event is to do a year-end review of the RICE-FP2, and discuss activities and outputs for 2018.

The event brought together a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from IRRI, AfricaRice, CIRAD and JIRCAS committed to a common goal of upgrading rice value chains in Asia and Africa. The FP2 research promotes sustainable rice value chains by engaging with stakeholders such as farmers, processors, traders, service providers, consumers, policy-makers, and other stakeholders in rice and rice by-product markets. The goal of the research is to catalyze a wide portfolio of strategies to upgrade rice product quality, postharvest processes, policy and contractual arrangements, and to develop new products along the rice value chain.

IRRI is represented by Bas Bouman, CRP Director, Matty Demont and Val Pede, respective FP2 and FP1 leaders, and Martin Gummert, FP2 postharvest cluster leader.

During the event, participants reviewed the progress of their FP2 activities in 2017, and highlighted major achievements and lessons learned. They explored linkages between FP2 and FP1, and other CRPs such as CCAFS and PIM. They also presented strategies for gender inclusiveness and capacity development.

The team developed strategies for outreach and private sector engagement, and identified potential donors and funding opportunities to support FP2’s research portfolio. As part of the program, they visited the Soufflet Rice Mill in Camargue, France to learn about French practices in rice value chain development.

For more information on FP2 and its role in upgrading sustainable rice value chains, you may visit http://ricecrp.org or contact Matty Demont at m.demont@irri.org.

See http://news.irri.org/2017/11/irri-scientists-join-fp2-team-to.html