 Okay, looks like we should get started. We're already 10 minutes late for our starting time. Good afternoon, everybody. And on behalf of ERIK and the ACA Congress, I would like to welcome you all to the opening session of this inaugural International Life International Policy Conference. This is a brand-new conference. This is the first time we are organizing this conference within ILC. Before I go any further, let me just tell you we have listened to many speakers this morning on the significance and importance of investment and policy with respect to global food security. Let me just go back to our first keynote speaker this morning, the Eifert President. He put it very eloquently that we are at a very crossroad right now. We have two paths ahead of us. The first path is we do nothing, which is the least resistance and face the consequence of what happens to the future. The second path is a difficult one with what it means to invest in agriculture to secure a right and secure future for the future generations. This conference is all about making sure we take the right path in the future so that the food security for the global world is secured for a long time to come. This particular forum is designed to discuss and present key issues on investment and policies that will be needed for a successful realization of the second-gen evolution. We already listened to many speakers this morning. We had a planning debate, there was a lot of discussion on what needed to be done to secure global right supply in the future there. One of the major objectives when we are brainstorming what we should be doing within ISE one of the things we thought it would be very good to provide a platform for the government officials and policy makers to showcase their investment opportunities in the country to donors, to corporate private investors, NGOs and other stakeholders in hand. Hopefully we will have next two days we will hear experts from both private and public sectors talk about investment requirement in the right supply chain and policy needed both at the local level, national level, global level to secure the food supply and hopefully we will have enough time to network with this unique group of people which includes experts from both private sector and public sector I mean I told you the uniqueness of this conference there is something for everybody from every sector hopefully we will have meaningful discussion, meaningful presentation and good interaction please don't feel to, you know there is nothing called stupid questions any question you have will feel free to ask it we will have enough time after the presentations to have a very interactive discussion there and this afternoon for this opening session we have three excellent presentations each of the presenters will give a very brief 20 minutes talk and after that we will have close to 30 minutes discussion and question answer from the floor with that let me invite our first speaker this afternoon this is Mr. Sam Dryden he is the director of the head of the agriculture development and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Mr. Dryden has extensive experience on food security and economic development he has worked in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, Middle East that means all over the world and prior to joining the foundation he sought as the managing director of a world-class company a corporate advisory and investment fund founded by the former World Bank president he has also sought as an advisor on rural development for the World Bank and Rockefeller Foundation until 2006 he laid emergent genetics which develops on market seats so he has extensive experience both from the private sector, semi-government and global international organizations and he also sought many other boards including Global Crop Diversity Trust South North Development Initiative and many other boards today he is going to focus his presentation on rice the significance of rice and nobody can beat rice that is the theme of his presentation with that we join me in welcoming Mr. Dryden just to begin the sentence of pleasure to be back in Vietnam, especially to celebrate the 50 years of great work with the areas we have been doing I was thinking back at the first time that I went to the areas a little over 25 years ago when the Rockefeller Growers Fund had put together a study group to look at whether there was actually an expanding technology gap between the developed countries and the developed countries in the plant sciences there had been great strides that had been made in the plant sciences particularly in the western crops of corn but we were concerned that no one was really focusing on rice so they put together a study group and it did look like there was an expanding gap that was the first time I went to the area essentially I visited the area a number of times as a member of the advisor panel of the Rockefeller Foundation advisory board on rice biotechnology this was the highly successful program that linked young researchers from all over Asia with 3D labs in the US and Western Europe to develop new rice technologies and as a result of that program rice has become a lot of crop it's on equal footing with any of the other commodity crops and it benefits from cutting edge research all over Asia and at Erie and it's because of that program where the Rockefeller Foundation put together it's important because rice isn't just another commodity and Erie will never be just another research institution not only does half the world's population depend upon rice for substance it's the principal source of income for millions in after the nation it's indispensable as we've heard this morning to local cultures between the welfare and national stability and I've even said that national security so rice will always be a national priority and an international imperative but unlike other commodities rice doesn't benefit from large global research programs within the private sector nor from within the large land grant university system that means that here with the national agricultural research programs our best hope for solutions feeding the poor and helping small farmers lift their families out of poverty and the challenges are only compounded by what we heard this morning we talked about the environmental pressures the rise of rising energy prices and the population growth so as the director of agricultural development for the Gates Foundation I have the privilege of working with colleagues to continue a distinguished history of foundation support for the area so my plans for this day are a key role in the history of the area as most of you know the story the Rockfell Foundation together with the Ford Foundation came together to form the area Ford Foundation built physical infrastructure and the Rockfell Foundation covered the operating costs as a result of that Asian price reduction double from the mid-1960s to 1990 outstretched population growth in the early crisis the effort was so successful that Ford and Rockfell then went on replicating models to address other crops and other geographies which eventually led to the formation of the Consulting Group for International Agricultural Research the CGIR had enthusiastic support not only in the World Bank but the developed country, the other community despite the success and the proven record of return on investment in crop improvements donors eventually began to win donors supported them to begin to win in November 1970 nearly 75% of the CGIR the budget went for the crop of the productive improvement but in the early 2000s this had dropped to only one third at the same time the rice prices had dropped about 15% per year between 1996 and 2001 so the period of problems with rice production had been solved and donors decided to put the money elsewhere then as we heard again this morning in 2008 a food crisis struck and cut the world off guard and now in the aftermath of the global recession the FAO tells us that there's over 1 billion people under very strong light so at the Gates Foundation we're guided by the belief that everyone should have the opportunity for a healthy and productive life we also believe that agricultural development and particularly the essential to creating that opportunity so revitalization of crop-raiding programs is one of our top priorities which is the reason we support AIRI is among our top grantees and is one of our most attractive partners AIRI and the other CG centers are critical to ensuring development of important global public goods to that end we provide the CG with about $70 million each year which goes to crop and freedom in the past three years we've invested over $50 million in AIRI to address smaller rice productivity for example we're funding the stress-tolerant rice for Africa and South Asia program of straw size to help develop new varieties of rice that withstand extreme weather the straw fishing project has already demonstrated success in India where we're working with the Indian government as a partner we've been able to quickly release and disseminate these stress-tolerant rice lines to smaller farmers we're also working with AIRI and USAID on the serial system issued for South Asia to increase serial yields among other things this innovative program uses cell phone technology to send information about weather, about markets and recommendations for appropriate conservation techniques this means farmers now are just a phone call away from a more productive crop to tackle malnutrition we're working with AIRI with Syngenta and with the Syngenta Foundation on the government of golden rice and new variety fortified with vitamin A tens of millions of children suffer from vitamin A deficiency the World Health Organization says as many as a half a million are going to go far each year so if we can use rice to deliver this important micro enrichment we can make a crucial difference in people's lives in all these areas we're using technology to catalyze meaningful change more importantly we're working with AIRI in partnership with others partnerships are critical to our success but to meet future challenges I believe it's time to update our leadership in the area of national programs over the past couple of decades a number of very strong NARS national agricultural research systems have emerged in Asia it's time for them to assume the more leadership role of regional research and free area to focus on innovative discovery research and dissemination for example we're working with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences to disseminate a stress variety called green super rice which is more efficient in its use of water and nitrogen to produce higher yields we're also supporting research by bioconsortional scientists from area and China to transform rice from a C3 plant to a C4 plant making this biochemical process more energy efficient and saving scarce water and nitrogen supplies no doubt the greatest global challenge we face though is in Africa as the Rockfell Foundation did in the 1990s to bridge the independent technology gap we've engaged the talents of the leading Asian national programs along with the area in building strong rice research capacity in Africa today Africa's home of 19 out of 20 lowest human development in Texas it suffers from disproportionate property and hunger