Efforts to 'turbocharge' rice and reduce world hunger enter important new phase.

Rice uses the C3 photosynthetic pathway, which in hot dry environments is much less efficient than the C4 pathway used in plants such as maize and sorghum. If rice could be 'switched' to use C4 photosynthesis, it would theoretically increase productivity by 50%. As well as an increase in photosynthetic efficiency, the introduction of C4 traits into rice is predicted to improve nitrogen use efficiency, double water use efficiency, and increase tolerance to high temperatures.
Professor Jane Langdale, Professor of Plant Development in the Department of Plant Sciences at Oxford University, and Principal Investigator on Phase III of the C4 Rice Project, said: 'Over 3 billion people depend on rice for survival, and, owing to predicted population increases and a general trend towards urbanization, land that currently provides enough rice to feed 27 people will need to support 43 by 2050.
Phases I and II of the programme were focused on identifying new components of the C4 pathway – both biochemical and morphological – as well as validating the functionality of known C4 enzymes in rice. Phase III will refine the genetic toolkit that has been assembled and will focus both on understanding the regulatory mechanisms that establish the pathway in C4 plants and on engineering the pathway in rice.
The C4 Rice Project was initiated in 2008 with funding from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, following discussions led by IRRI. Phase III of the project is a collaboration between 12 institutions in eight countries – Oxford University, IRRI, Cambridge University, Australian National University, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Washington State University, University of Minnesota, University of Toronto, Heinrich Heine University, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, Academia Sinica, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences-Max Planck Partner Institute for Computational Biology.

Source : www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-12-01-efforts-turbocharge-rice-and-reduce-world-hunger-enter-important-new-phase
To know more about C4 rice project: http://
c4rice.com/