Rice In Asia Essay

OVERVIEW OF RICE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT IN ASIA

Rice is one of the most widely grown crops in the world, providing food for half of the world’s population. In all of Asia, rice is the staple food grain accounting for approximately 30 percent of daily caloric intake, and in several countries in South and Southeast Asia, the calorie intake derived from rice is more than 50 percent. Therefore, rice plays a central role in ensuring the food security of Asia. At present, there are still more than 140 million rice-farming households rely on rice as their primary source of livelihood.

Rice is being cultivated worldwide on 166 million hectares of land, producing 745 million tons of rough rice at an average productivity of 4.48 tons per hectare (FAOSTAT 2013), and Asia contributes up to 88 percent and 91 percent of the world’s rice area and production, respectively. Rice in Asia is predominantly produced on millions of smallholder family farms with an average size of 1 hectare per household. There are three main rice ecosystems across Asia defined by water supply and control, namely, irrigated, rainfed lowland and

CHALLENGES IN RICE SECTOR DEVELOMENT

Rice production in Asia contributes significant achievements for world’s food security, however, during the last 10 years, a number of challenges and uncertainties have emerged to induce unfavorable conditions for rice production in the years to come. Major challenges and constraints are identified as following:

Stagnation in rice productivity