World must act today to boost rice supply: experts
AFP


HANOI, Nov 09, 2010 (AFP) - Urgent action is needed to reverse inefficient farming methods and boost the world's supply of rice in order to prevent rising poverty and hunger, experts told a major world rice congress on Tuesday.

"We must take action now, not next week, not next month, not next year, but today," Kanayo Nwanze, president of the UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development, told the gathering in Hanoi.

Rice is the staple food for more than three billion people, about half the world's population, and rice-producing areas are home to nearly 560 million extremely poor people who live on less than 1.25 dollars per day.

"Projected demands for rice will outstrip supply in the near to medium term unless something is done to reverse current trends," Robert Zeigler of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) told the forum.

He said these trends included "slow productivity growth and inefficient, often unsustainable management of natural resources".

Vietnam is the world's second-biggest exporter of rice, behind Thailand, but Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said the country's food production still faced many challenges, including rapid population growth and more frequent natural disasters.

"Ensuring food security is not merely an economic or humanitarian activity," he said. "It actively contributes to national as well as global socio-political stability."

The three-day meeting comes after an IRRI report said Asian countries need to sharply increase and better manage rice stocks to improve food security in the region, where 65 percent of the world's hungry live.

It said that about 90 percent of rice is grown in Asia, on more than 200 million rice farms.

According to an organiser of the congress, Minister of Agriculture Cao Duc Phat, the event aims to "feed the world's fast growing population," which may come up to nine billion people by 2050.

The event, held every four years, is the world's largest gathering of the rice industry and brings together more than 1,000 researchers, traders, agricultural ministers and other delegates from Asia and beyond.

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© Copyright AFP 2010.

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