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Asia represents about 90% of global rice production and consumption. It is also home to many millions of poor and hungry people who depend on rice for most of their calorie requirements. Many of them are poor farmers who not only consume rice but also grow it on small plots of less than 2 hectares. In fact, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) reports that nearly two-thirds of the worlds poor live in rice-producing areas in Asia. Current trends in population growth are expected to push this share even higher. Africa also has significant rice consumption and a large number of poor people. Global rice demand is expected to rise in the coming decades, albeit in different amounts across regions. These changes in demand are mainly due to population growth, rising incomes, urbanization, and changing food preferences. At the global level, per capita rice consumption may become flat, but will increase in Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas while it will decline in some Asian countries that are experiencing diet shifts due to higher incomes and urbanization. Rice production, on the other hand, has slowed down, thus tightening rice supplies. Production growth has lagged for several reasons, including stagnant or declining crop yields, underinvestment in agricultural research and development, increasing land and water constraints for agriculture, increased input costs, and increased labor costs due to urbanization
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and industrialization. In the coming years, climate change is expected to put additional pressure on rice production systems, further tightening rice supplies. The surges in food prices in 2007-08 and 2010-11 and the rapid depletion of global food stocks reveal that the world is increasingly vulnerable to food shortages or crises. As the populations of riceproducing and -consuming regions expand rapidly, concrete actions must be taken to boost production and secure rice supplies, especially for the millions of poor people who reside in these regions.
Asias experience during the Green Revolutionwhen the introduction of improved rice varieties led to higher rice yields and outputshows that technology is the key to spurring rapid growth in rice production. In addition to bridging the gap between demand and supply, rice productivity growth will also have large poverty reduction impacts as many rice producers are poor small farmers that depend on rice production for their livelihoods. New technologies, including postharvest technologies, must be rolled out continually on a large scale to achieve these impacts. Recent strides in rice technology development and delivery are promising. Rice hybrids that are high-yielding, resistant to pests and diseases, and tolerant of environmental stresses are being developed and are increasingly available to farmers. Around 20 million hectares of hybrid rice are now grown globally, with the largest share, 85%, grown in China, according to IRRI. Biofortified rice, enriched with micronutrients such as vitamin A and zinc, has also been developed and has large potential to
Rice Today October-December 2011