Rice,Oryza sativa L.,is the staple food for half the worlds population.Future world food security requires continued and sustainable increase in rice production to mitigate the effects of climate change and loss of arable land.Much of this increase has to come from new high yielding cultivars with resistances to multiple stresses.To achieve this,accelerated genetic gains in rice improvement are expected through breeding by design-the future knowledge and information based breeding strategy in the post-genomic era.