PRESS CONFERENCE ON INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF RICE

The decision to mark 2004 as the International Year of Rice was the first time the United Nations has dedicated a year to a crop commodity, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s Assistant Director General told correspondents at Headquarters today.

Michel Savini, speaking at a press conference held in conjunction with the launch of the Year, said the decision to dedicate next year to rice was an indication of the important role its sustainable production could play in achieving the Millennium Development Goals on the eradication of hunger and poverty.  He was joined at the launch by Mahmoud Solh, the FAO’s Director of Plant Production and Protection Division.

Rice was a staple food for more than 50 per cent of the world’s population, and it provided 20 per cent of the world’s dietary supply, as opposed to just 19 per cent for wheat and 5 per cent for maize, Mr. Savini said.  However, even as the world’s population continued to increase, rice production was competing for land and water with other users such as urban development.

Almost 1 billion households in Africa, Asia and the Americas depended on rice production systems as their main source of employment and livelihood, he added, and he hoped that the Year would act as a “catalyst” for countries to increase their production of the commodity in a “sustainable way that would benefit farmers, women, children and especially the poor”.

In response to a question about the expected rate of increase in rice production, Mr. Solh said the growth rate in the 1970s and 1980s was 2.5 per cent, but that dropped to 1.1 per cent in the 1990s.  As a result of those figures, it was clear that the world food demand for rice could not be achieved.  Additionally, it was that stagnation in production that prompted 2004 to be declared the International Year of Rice.

Of the 400 billion tonnes of rice that are produced annually, he added, China and India produced half.  But Egypt is quickly gaining ground, as it was the highest producer per unit area in 2001.

In response to a question on genetically modified rice, Mr. Solh said they would be looking at all “advances in science and technology”.  He acknowledged that GMO rice was still a controversial subject, especially in terms of its vitamin A content, but he said China, India and scientists at Cornell University in the United States and the Republic of Korea were showing some promise in their production.  He also insisted that in developing countries GMO rice was not a “big concern”.  Instead, the concern was to provide the right resources, and so far there was a long way to go before the GMO issues could be discussed.

Mr. Solh said he hoped that the International Year of Rice would focus on the diversification of the system.  “We better talk about a rice-based production system, rather than rice alone”, he said, because the rice-based production system also encompassed other production aspects, and that, in turn, would introduce other cash crops.  He said steps also needed to be taken to address the issue of water conservation in rice production.

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