Why rice?
Rice is integral to global food systems. Worldwide, 3.5 billion people consume rice and 144 million family farmers produce rice. Tragically, some 90 per cent of them live in or near the poverty line - many of them are women.
As the population grows so does the demand for rice. Meeting a growing demand poses an enormous challenge in a world with finite resources. Annual water consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of rice top the charts among food crops.
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Rice smallholders, especially women, bear the health and economic risks of production as they are inadequately equipped to safeguard their livelihood against climate change impacts and market risks.
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If we do not act now, today's children will live in a severely degraded environment and many farming communities will remain within the poverty trap in rice.
What we do
The Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP)'s, #ChooseSustainableRice campaign aims to promote public awareness of the positive economic, environmental and social attributes and benefits of sustainable rice production.
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SRP is a global multi-stakeholder alliance and standard system with over 100 institutional members. We promote resource efficiency and climate change resilience in rice systems - both on-farm and throughout value chains - and pursue voluntary market transformation initiatives by developing sustainable production standards and indicators, as well as incentive and outreach mechanisms to boost wide-scale adoption of sustainable best practices.