 Rice is food to more than half the world's population. Through rice research, scientists at the International Rice Research Institute are finding ways to reduce poverty through improved and diversified rice-based systems, ensure that rice production is sustainable and has minimal negative impact on the environment, improve the nutrition and health of poor rice consumers and farmers, provide equal access to rice knowledge and information. Helping make these goals a reality is Darshan Brar. Since 1987, Dr. Brar has spent a major part of his career working to broaden the gene pool of cultivated rice through wide crossing. Dr. Brar has transferred novel genes from wild grass species to cultivated rice. Moving useful traits from wild rice to cultivated rice is an important plant-beading approach to develop superior varieties for cultivation by the farmers. Wild rice, the ancestor of modern rice, grass-like trim-tip plants, are a treasury of genes for tolerance to major pest and environmental stresses. His team at Erie, in partnership with scientists from other rice-growing countries, has carried out extensive breeding using wild rice. We used conventional breeding and modern biotechnological tools to transfer genetic properties of wild rice. As a result, we developed many breeding lines tolerant to major stresses, such as bacteria blight, blast, tungru virus, and brown plant-hopper disease. These breeding lines have been exploited extensively in rice breeding programs in Asia. Seven of these lines have been released as varieties. In Vietnam, Dr. Brar's team crossed popular IR-64 with a rhizorufipogon, a wild species that grows naturally in acidic soils. His scientific achievements contribute significantly to global food security. Dr. Brar continues to use new tools of genomics to breed rice varieties tolerant of drought and other serious pests that continue to threaten rice productivity and sustainability, making sure that the world eats rice every day.