The Global Rice Breeding Program (GRBP) is a globally unified rice breeding program of CGIAR guiding rice breeding at IRRI, AfricaRice, and Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT. Its mission is to improve the quality of life of smallholder rice farmers and consumers in the developing world. Through its webinar series, GRBP aims to highlight advanced research innovations from the three Centers, bringing a more comprehensive view of rice breeding to CGIAR and the broader scientific community.

Topic: REMET-Rice: a multidisciplinary initiative for low-emission rice systems.

The REMET-Rice initiative is a partnership agreement led by the International Rice Research Institute to deliver pioneering solutions to transform rice cultivation into a low-emission, climate-resilient system. The project is delivered in four interconnected work streams bringing together different disciplines such as crop physiology, soil science, microbiomes, and modeling, among others, to develop scalable mitigation strategies. The project has conducted more than 10 experimental studies within two years to deepen the understanding of how variable factors such as climate, soil health, management practices, and rice varieties can affect the mechanisms behind greenhouse gas emissions, particularly methane (CH4). This presentation will provide an overview of the project approaches and its milestones particularly on the understanding of the interaction between genotype and environment on the variability of emission among varieties. The knowledge generated by the project is currently integrated into the development and improvement of the rice model ORYZA, which, over the last thirty years, has supported various research for development in rice and is currently leading digital innovations for breeding, sustainable farming systems, and climate action.