"Objectives: The RWC was convened in response to growing concerns about the sustainability of
rice-wheat systems in the Indo-Gangetic Plains. These systems are fundamental to food security,
incomes and employment to hundreds of millions of rural and urban poor in South Asia. The
objectives of the RWC are to help improve livelihoods and eliminate poverty through more
productive and sustainable agroecosystems based on the rice-wheat rotation, and to conserve
natural resources (soil, water, fuel, and agroecosystem diversity) devoted to these systems."