26th Annual CORRA Meeting Highlights the Importance of Rice for Global Food Security

The annual meeting of IRRI, NARES partners and officials emphasized that strengthening the partnership among the network in rice-based agricultural research and development is key to addressing global agrifood challenges.

To strengthen the partnership among the agricultural researchers, research leaders, and extension workers in Asia, the International Rice Research institute (IRRI) in collaboration with Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) held the 26th Annual Meeting for the Council of Partnership on Rice Research in Asia (CORRA) on November 29-30, 2022 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. CORRA is composed of the leaders of IRRI and the National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems (NARES) of 16 rice growing countries in Asia including Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. BARC represents Bangladesh.

During the two-day meeting, the members discussed the challenges being faced by the Asian and global rice industry, which include rising rice demand with growing population, food price inflation, scarcity of land and water, shortage of labor, rice yield gaps and yield stagnation, climate change, limited access to climate-smart technologies, inefficient value chains, impact of COVID-19, and Ukraine War on agrifood systems.

The meeting highlighted the importance of rice for global food security, and breaking the myths and misconceptions about production of rice such as the adverse effects on human nutrition and excessive usage of water. Members also had extensive discussions on the use of gene editing technology and the developing regulatory framework on gene editing. Participants also talked about low input agriculture, development of value-added rice products, sharing rice varieties between CORRA countries, and capacity development in rice research.

Mr. Md. Sayedul Islam, Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh was the chief guest at the…