The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and CGIAR, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a US$ 1.5 billion investment program aimed at promoting sustainable and low carbon rice farming across the Asia-Pacific region. The initiative is designed to address escalating environmental and productivity challenges facing rice farmers, particularly smallholders, while securing long term food security in a region that depends heavily on rice for both nutrition and economic stability.
Rice remains the most consumed staple in Asia, feeding over half of the region’s population on a daily basis and accounting for a substantial proportion of caloric intake, over 25% across Asia and nearly 50% in Southeast Asia. For millions of rural households, especially smallholders, rice is not only a food crop but also their primary source of income. Despite its foundational role, the rice sector is confronting multifaceted pressures. These include decreasing productivity, increasing frequency of extreme weather events, shrinking water supplies and mounting scrutiny over rice farming’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.
“Rice is essential to food security in Asia, supplying over a quarter of the region’s calorie intake, and half in Southeast Asia. For hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers, rice is not just food, it is their livelihood. Today, that livelihood is increasingly threatened by extreme weather and environmental degradation.”
Strategic Investment in Climate Adapted, Inclusive Rice Systems
At the core of the initiative is the newly created ADB–CGIAR Clearinghouse Facility, which will serve as a financing and coordination platform to align research, funding and implementation efforts. The Gates Foundation is cofinancing this facility, signaling its long term commitment to climate resilient food systems. The program seeks to accelerate the adoption of farming practices that are simultaneously high yielding, climate resilient and low in carbon emissions.
The facility will support sustainable water management strategies tailored to increasingly water scarce environments, promote the development of inclusive and efficient value chains and contribute to enhanced nutritional outcomes for the poorest and most vulnerable populations in the region.
ADB intends to allocate up to US$ 1.5 billion through this platform between 2025 and 2030. This funding forms a critical component of ADB’s broader pledge of US$ 40 billion toward food systems transformation by 2030, announced earlier in May. The overarching aim is to create adaptive and sustainable rice systems that not only produce more with fewer resources but also enable farmers to cope with rising climate volatility.
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Initial Rollout Across Five Countries
Initial projects under the program are being prepared in Bangladesh, Cambodia, the People’s Republic of China, Pakistan and the Philippines. These countries represent a cross section of rice producing geographies in Asia, each facing distinct yet interconnected agricultural challenges. By piloting the initiative in these contexts, the partners intend to generate models that can be adapted and expanded across other parts of the region in the years ahead.
Institutional Roles and Research Based Collaboration
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), which is part of the CGIAR network of global agricultural research centers, will play a central role in providing scientific and technological support to the initiative. Yvonne Pinto, Director General of IRRI, emphasized the alignment of institutional efforts.
“This joint initiative will reinforce CGIAR’s strategic collaboration with ADB and scale up CGIAR’s innovations in rice systems and beyond. Alongside partners such as ADB and Gates Foundation, we can drive sustainable and resilient transformation of the rice sector in Asia and transform the lives of millions of smallholder farmers now and in the future.”
The collaboration is designed to leverage CGIAR’s extensive research base and combine it with ADB’s development financing capacity and the Gates Foundation’s focus on agricultural innovation. This tri-sectoral approach aims to integrate research, policy, finance and field level implementation into a cohesive delivery model.
A Long Term Commitment to Regional Resilience and Equity
ADB’s engagement in the initiative builds on its longstanding role as a regional development institution. Established in 1966, ADB is owned by 69 member countries, including 50 from Asia and the Pacific. The bank has positioned itself as a partner in delivering inclusive, climate resilient and sustainable development by aligning financial instruments with long term strategic partnerships.
The collaboration with CGIAR and the Gates Foundation underscores a shared recognition of the urgent need to reform rice systems in the face of environmental degradation and socio-economic vulnerability. By aligning institutional strengths and cofinancing capacities, the program seeks to bring scalable solutions to a sector at risk and a population in need of immediate and sustained support.