 International Rice Congress is a gathering of people from all parts of the rice sector whether there be government policy makers, opinion formers, researchers, people involved in the growing of rice and the food chain both and include both the public and private sector. The problems facing agriculture are common throughout whether that be in the rice sector, potatoes and in livestock. Bringing everyone together in the rice sector we can discuss issues affecting climate change, carbon dioxide emissions, ammonia emissions, we can address issues of the nutrition, we can address issues of increasing farmers' incomes to lift people out of poverty and these are common issues throughout the whole of agriculture. The international community has agreed upon the United Nations sustainable development goals and it's important that we on the rice sector can discuss what technologies we have, the adaptation of those and to scale those up so that we can meet these challenges of the sustainable development goals. The IRC in itself cannot fulfill those goals, it is by bringing people together and discussing those that people can then bring together ideas for policy, whether that be through innovation, adopting technologies which can help mitigate some of the effects of climate change, nutrition, urbanisation, water quality, air quality and these are all important challenges facing us.