Rats have long been the scourge of smallholder farmers in many rice-growing regions in Asia and throughout the world. In 1990, the International Rice Research Institute held an international workshop simply called “Rats in Rice,” which assembled rodent experts from around the globe. Unfortunately, at that time, most of the experts were retired or about to retire. The senior editor of this book, Grant Singleton, attended that workshop for his first rat meeting and it must have had an impact on him because, within 4 years, he was back in the Philippines, and over the next decade he ventured into Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam, and Myanmar, researching the ecology and management of rodent pests. Some 20 years later he organized a second international rodent conference hosted by IRRI, “Impacts of Rodent Outbreaks on Food Security in Asia,” held on 26-28 October 2009. The conference generated much international interest, including an article in Science in February 2010 as part of a special issue on “food security.” The deliberations of the conference have now been captured in this book.