UN Cultivates 2004 as The International Year of Rice

NEW YORK, New York, October 31, 2003 (ENS) - Under the motto Rice is Life, the United Nations is sponsoring an international drive next year to increase the production of rice, the staple food for about half the world's people.

Declaring 2004 the International Year of Rice, UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General Dr. Jacques Diouf today told UN delegates at the organization's New York headquarters that the world population continues to grow, but land and water resources for rice production are diminishing.

Calling rice "a symbol of cultural identity and global unity," Dr. Diouf told UN delegates today how the grain shapes religious observances, festivals, customs, cuisine and celebrations around the world.

In India, women farmers transplant rice in a trial field belonging to the Directorate of Rice Research. (Photo by G. Bizzarri courtesy FAO )

Ninety percent of the world’s rice is grown and consumed in Asia, but rice is the most rapidly growing food source in Africa and has a major influence on human nutrition and food security all over the world.

"Almost a billion households in Asia, Africa and the Americas depend on rice systems for their main source of employment and livelihood," Dr. Diouf told UN delegates.

"About four-fifths of the world's rice is produced by small-scale farmers and is consumed locally. Rice systems support a wide variety of plants and animals, which also help supplement rural diets and incomes." Therefore, said Dr. Diouf, "rice is on the frontline in the fight against world hunger and poverty."

Of the 840 million people still suffering from chronic hunger, over 50 percent live in areas dependent on rice production for food, income and employment. Now is the time, Dr. Diouf urged, for the global community to work together to increase sustainable rice production to benefit "farmers, women, children and especially the poor.

"We aim to engage the entire community of stakeholders, from rural farmers to the scientific institutions that mapped the rice genome, in the mission to increase rice production in a manner that promotes sustainability and equity," he said.

Steaming hot, a bowl of rice is the staple food of some three billion people. (Photo credit unknown)

The FAO chief views the International Year of Rice 2004 as a "powerful opportunity" for the global community to implement initiatives aimed at promoting sustainable agricultural development that have already been declared. "The Year of Rice will act as a catalyst for country driven programs throughout the world," said Diouf.

Many UN member countries have already formed national committees for the International Year of Rice to manifest the international vision of more rice filling now empty bowls.

The strategy of concentrating on rice for a year has been successful in the past. Just after World War II, rapid population growth coupled with slow rice production led experts to predict starvation in Asia.

On its own without the participation of other UN agencies, the FAO declared 1966 the Year of Rice. Diouf says countries took measures to improve production, marketing, milling and nutrition. Conferences were organized and scientific research stimulated.

This focus resulted in the so-called Green Revolution, a term coined in 1968 by then U.S. Agency for International Development Director William Gaud for the movement to increase yields with new crop cultivars, irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides, and mechanization. Some of these methods, while raising rice yields, created environmental problems such as water depletion and contamination.

Diouf pointed out that the first rapid increases in yield have now diminished. "While the Green Revolution of the 1970s greatly alleviated the global burden of hunger in some parts of the world, these benefits have been leveling off," he said.

Rice farmers in Mindanao take a pest damage assessment test during an FAO integrated pest management training course. In 1985, farmers in the Philippines who adopted these techniques achieved average, or better than average rice yields while reducing pesticide use by at least 50 percent. (Photo by P. Kenmore courtesy FAO)

At the 31st North American - European Union Agricultural Conference held last week in Spain, David King, secretary general of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers said world rice prices are stable and world rice production increased by about three percent in 2003 owing to good monsoon rains.

Rice production in India was up by 14 percent this year, and rice production in Thailand increased by four percent to a new record, King said.

But some of Asia's other monsoon countries suffered from typhoons and flooding, he said. In rice dependent China, rice production fell by one percent.

Cold, overcast weather in Japan resulted in a poor growing season in that country, said King, and this was accentuated by a government policy towards liberalizing the rice market. Rice production in Japan fell by seven percent in 2003.

FAO figures show that by 2030 total demand for rice will be three percent higher than the annual amounts produced between 1997 and 1999.

Thirty Filipino researchers working to conserve traditional varieties of rice have won for the third consecutive year the world’s most prestigious award for a scientific support team in publicly funded agricultural research.

The award was announced Wednesday at the annual general meeting in Nairobi of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which each year presents the CGIAR Excellence in Science Awards.

Comparison of rice varieties: Top row L-R: Calrose, Kosanbare; Middle row L-R: Nanking Sel, A301, Keyeena; Bottom row L-R: Nortai, Koshikahari (Photo by Keith Weller courtesy USDA)

The winning team of scientists works in the Genetic Resources Center (GRC) at the International Rice Research Institute in Los Baños, Philippines which manages the International Rice Genebank.

The genebank houses a wealth of rice diversity bred by farmers over thousands of years of agriculture. In addition to preserving seed samples in cold storage, the genebank multiplies them to keep the collection viable and fill requests for samples.

“We aim to protect traditional varieties of rice so that they can be used to help poor rice farmers throughout the world,” said Ruaraidh Sackville Hamilton, head of the GRC. “We are open to any nation, including those who do not deposit their traditional varieties with us, provided they agree not to infringe the sovereign rights of nations over their biodiversity.”

Since 1986, the genebank has distributed some 250,000 seed samples, facilitating the free movement of germplasm among 96 countries. This includes repatriating more than 32,000 rice samples to 34 countries of origin.

The 2004 International Year of Rice is seen as a crucial effort to feed a burgeoning world population. “Today, rice feeds nearly three billion people, or almost half the world’s population,” said International Rice Research Institute spokesman Duncan Macintosh. “By 2015," he predicted, "that number will shoot up to 4.6 billion people.”