Achieving Millennium Dev’t Goals begins with rice research

The Millennium Development Goals spelled out by the United Nations 3 years ago hinge on policymakers recognizing the essential role rice plays in the lives and livelihoods of the most of the world’s poor. This warning came a few months before the launch of the United Nations’ International Year of Rice 2004.

IRRI Director Genneral Ronald P. Cantrell said that achieving at least two of the eight millennium goals depends heavily on continued and strengthened research efforts to help farmers grow rice more efficiently, profitably and sustainably. These two goals are eradicating extreme poverty and hunger and ensuring environmental sustainability, according to Dr. Cantrell.

"The first and most important millennium goal of halving the number of poor and hungry by 2015 concerns rice consumers and producers more than any other group in the developing world," Dr. Cantrelll said. "That’s because they are among the poorest and the most deprived of access to food."

Dr. Cantrell said four other millennium goals that could be directly advanced through continued rice research are achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality,, and improving maternal health.