The Doubly Green Revolution in Rice

It is indeed a pleasure to be at this World Food Prize celebration here in Des Moines to participate in honoring this year’s co-laureates, Dr. Monty Jones and Prof. Yuan Longping, two giants in rice research. How appropriate it is that we honor them this year—2004, the International Year of Rice. In Africa and Asia, respectively, they have both made remarkable contributions toward the eradication of hunger and poverty. We’re sure Dr. Jones and Prof. Longping will be building on their past successes toward even more achievements as we all stand ready to play roles in the coming “Doubly Green Revolution”—a concept put forth a decade ago (Conway et al 1994) by a small CGIARcommissioned think-tank panel headed by Gordon Conway, who is here in the audience today. In his 1997 book of the same name, he put forth that the world needed a Doubly Green Revolution that would be even more productive than the first Green Revolution and substantially more “green” in terms of conserving natural resources and the environment (Conway 1997). Today, we would like to suggest that—certainly in rice—the Doubly Green Revolution has commenced and significant progress has already been made. We’ll be giving some examples about how IRRI and its partners in national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES) have already had noteworthy successes with environment-friendly technologies that are having positive impacts on rice productivity and poor farmers’ lives.