The event, held on March 27-28 under the theme “Scaling Collaboration to Deliver the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)” brought together more than 500 experts and decision makers from the public, private sectors and the international development community to craft actionable plans and solutions to achieving the SDGs, particularly on ending global hunger.

According to the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), rice is the world’s most important staple food, sustaining more than half of the global population. The crop is therefore central to the realization of targets under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Guided by its mission to promote resource efficiency and sustainability in the global rice sector through an alliance that links research, production, policymaking, trade and consumption, the Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP) was established in 2011 and is co-convened by UN Environment and the IRRI. The alliance works with more than 80 institutional partners to promote climate-smart best practices among rice smallholders in key rice-growing countries. The platform is currently focusing on how to drive wide-scale adoption of best sustainable practices with among a broad and diverse stakeholder base.

David Johnson, IRRI’s regional representative for Southeast Asia

To address this topic, David Johnson, IRRI’s regional representative for Southeast Asia, moderated a panel session on “Scaling the Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP),” with an aim of identifying potential solutions to upscale the SRP in order to reach greater impact. The panel members included: Makara Ouk, director, Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Institute; Paul Nicholson, vice-president and head of Rice Research and Risk, Olam International; Dechen Tsering, director and representative, Asia and the Pacific, UN Environment, and Wyn Ellis, SRP coordinator.

In his opening remarks, Johnson stressed that “if we are going to achieve the SDGs, enhancing the sustainability of rice production, the staple of 4 billion people, must be part of the equation.”

The IRRI said improved production practices that are developed and are being promoted through the SRP help farmers achieve social, economic and environment production benefits. Farmers adopting SRP principles are often able to increase their incomes by 20%, while reducing inputs, such as water, by a similar amount.

In order to advance collective multi-stakeholder engagement, Dechen Tsering stated that UN Environment could convene partners at a regional level and help shape future initiatives based on best practices and lessons from the experience of successful initiatives, such as the SRP.

Paul Nicholson of Olam, one of the world’s largest agri-businesses, emphasized that, “the SRP has enabled coordination for the first time across a very large but fragmented sector in order to drive innovation and sustainable transformation.” However, more needs to be done to develop communication conduits between stakeholders.

Dr. Makara of CARDI stressed the significance of getting more value to the farmer to drive changes and hopes for SRP to deliver on this.

Commenting on key challenges to upscaling, Wyn Ellis, SRP coordinator, reiterated the need to address communication and to promote the positive impacts of adoption of sustainable best practices on livelihoods and the environment, to connect markets with producers of sustainable rice, and to foster an enabling policy environment that incentivizes best practice adoption.

In response, members of the panel suggested the following solutions: 1) fostering wide scale adoption of sustainable best practices through strong commercial linkages between farmers and markets to serve demand for SRP-certified rice; 2) development of sources of finance for farm-level initiatives; and 3) promotion of active participation and communication among stakeholders.

Johnson concluded that “the positive impacts and lessons learnt from current SRP initiatives need to be more widely communicated to allow stakeholders to realize the value in promoting sustainable production methods for increasing farm profitability as a means to achieving long-term food security.”