Rice conference at FAO focuses on global markets and sustainable production

Within the celebration of the International Year of Rice 2004, FAO hosted in its headquarters an international conference to mobilize the international community to confront the constraints the global rice sector is facing from local farming practices to international trade.

Leading rice experts from around the world as well as policy makers gathered in Rome on 12-13 February 2004 to discuss the challenges of expanding markets and the opportunities of fulfilling the first Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of undernourished people by 2015. A sustainable increase in rice production will help achieve this goal since this crop is the staple food of over half of the world's population.

According to FAO, a sustainable intensification of rice production is essential for food security, especially in Asia and Africa. "Progress requires that all stakeholders from the global community both from the private and public sector work together to improve rice based systems in a favourable economic environment," said Hartwig de Haen, FAO Assistant Director-General, Economic and Social Department.

With the slogan "Rice is life", for the first time the UN dedicates the theme of an international year to a single crop, showing rice's enormous impact on human nutrition and global food security.

To read the documents presented by the participants to the International Rice Conference, please click here.

For more information on the activities of the International Year of Rice 2004, please click here.

To read the article on the opening of the International year of Rice published in the December 2003 update, please click here.