Prioritising investment into identifying the biological
causes underlying associations between rice consumption
and decreased risk factors for chronic diseases
would have significant and long-term impact on global
nutritional challenges that have their greatest effect in
developing countries. Technologies are advancing at
rates rapid enough to make scientific progress in these
areas, and doing so would lead to both nutritional and
economic benefit in every rice-consuming country. The
outputs from such research programs must be integrated
with other efforts aiming to deliver climate-ready varieties
that resist the challenges of the changing environment,
and varieties that are acceptable to consumers.
Rice that does not meet the needs of consumers in terms
of physical and sensory properties will not be successful
in the marketplace, but once research programs are
resourced to understand the linkages between chemicals
in rice and human health, and are able to deliver solid
nutritional information to the medical community, consumers
might be able to be persuaded to increase their
consumption of wholegrain or pregerminated rice.