As part of the International Year of Rice, FAO organised the International Rice Conference on 12-13 February 2004 in Rome, Italy. The main theme of the second day was "Sustainable rice-based production systems: Challenges and opportunities". The International Rice Commission (IRC) has now published the 12 papers from this session (including e.g. "Potentials and limitations of biotechnology in rice" by R. Coffman, S.R. McCouch and R.W. Herdt), plus an introductory Overview section, as IRC Newsletter 53. The IRC works within the framework of FAO and currently has 61 member countries. See http://www.fao.org/docrep/008/y5682e/y5682e00.htm or contact [email protected] for more information.

12/07/2005