• Submitted by: manso
• Business and Economy
• 05 / 26 / 2011

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Genetic improvement and technology transference will be some of the topics to be discussed during the Fifth International Conference on Rice, scheduled for June 7-10 at Havana’s Convention Center.

The meeting, organized by the Institute of Grain Research and the Rice Agro-industrial Group of the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture, will bring together researchers, specialists, producers, and executives from different regions of the world, mainly Latin America and the Caribbean.

Telce Gonzalez Morera, president of the event’s organizing committee, told AIN news agency that experts from Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Spain, Nicaragua, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Venezuela, the United States, Mexico, Panama and China, have confirmed their participation.

Gonzalez Morera added that other topics to be analyzed include the use of equipment and implements for small-, medium- and large-scale production; the commercialization of rice; and central pivot irrigation.

On this occasion, the event’s agenda includes the discussion and analysis of aspects linked to important agricultural products for Cuba such as beans, corn, soy, and sorghum.

As a cereal grain, rice is the most important staple food for a large part of the world’s human population —more than two billion people—, especially in East and South Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and the West Indies.

According to Wikipedia, it is the grain with the second-highest worldwide production, after maize (corn). Since a large portion of maize crops are grown for purposes other than human consumption, rice is the most important grain with regard to human nutrition and caloric intake,
providing more than one fifth of the calories consumed worldwide by the human species.


Source: www.radioangulo.cu/en/news/cuba/10581-intl-conference-on-rice-in-havana-...