African Experts Showcase a Major Drive to Double Rice Production in Response to Burgeoning Consumer Demand:


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African Experts Showcase a Major Drive to Double Rice Production in Response to Burgeoning Consumer Demand:

With memories of the devastating global rice price crisis fresh in their minds, experts from Africa and beyond, meeting in Mali from 22-26 March, call for long-term commitment to scientific innovations and partnerships that are critical for enabling the continent to fulfill its huge potential as a rice producer and to sharply curtail its perilous dependence on rice imports.

The Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice), which is organizing the Africa Rice Congress 2010 in collaboration with the government of Mali, had been predicting the crisis for at least 2 years before it struck. The crisis created enormous hardship for poor consumers around the world and prompted riots in major African capitals.

In meetings with government ministers before and since then, Dr. Papa A. Seck, director general of AfricaRice, which is supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), has repeatedly underlined the dangers implicit in the region’s rapidly increasing rice consumption and lagging production.

In West Africa, for example, consumption rose by 4.5% yearly during 1961-2006, while production expanded at 3.2%. In Mozambique, the contrast has been even more marked, with consumption jumping by 15% yearly during 1990-2005 and production remaining stagnant. The resulting gap between Africa’s rice supply and demand has saddled governments with huge import bills, ranging from US$4 to US$5 billion in 2008.

“Partly as a result of research and advocacy,” said Seck, “many governments have begun to abandon the laissez faire reliance on markets that has failed Africa’s rice farmers and consumers.” Instead, he explained, they are pursuing new policies and projects that give farmers better access to improved rice technologies.

Yet, the equation that brought about the crisis of 2008 appears fundamentally unchanged. In 2009, the region still imported nearly 40% of the rice it consumes, accounting for about a third of all rice traded in world markets, and prices remained volatile. “Only sustained commitment to technological and policy change,” said Seck, “will reduce Africa’s exposure to severe and unpredictable supply and price shocks.”

Major initiatives launched by AfricaRice in the wake of the crisis, with partners such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and with strong support from donors (including the Japanese and US governments), demonstrate what is possible. As a result of such efforts, rice production in sub-Saharan Africa rose by 18% in 2008.

Countries in West Africa’s Sahel Region registered especially sharp increases in rice production, totaling 44% in 2007-2008. For the 2009-2010 crop season, FAO is projecting double-digit growth in production for several countries: Gambia (79%), Mozambique (40%), Benin (34%), Senegal (24%), Mali (21%), Ghana (20%), and Burkina-Faso (15%). Bold policy measures like those taken in Mali, including subsidies on seeds and fertilizers, were vital for success.

Many of the improved seeds promoted through the emergency projects were NERICA (New Rice for Africa) varieties. Developed by AfricaRice starting in the 1990s, the best of these varieties combine the stress tolerance of Oryza glaberrima, a rice species native to Africa, with the high yield potential of O. sativa, which originated in Asia and is grown around the world.

Some of the nearly 80 upland and lowland NERICA varieties available so far have been widely adopted in many countries. For example, two of them were sown to nearly 200,000 hectares in Nigeria during 2007, and to about 35,000 hectares in Uganda, enabling the country to cut its rice imports by half from 2002 to 2007.

Despite the award-winning success of the upland NERICAs and the lowland NERICAs (which respectively earned their creators, Dr. Monty Jones, the 2004 World Food Prize and Dr. Moussa Sie, the 2006 Japan International Koshihikari Prize), Africa’s rice scientists have neither the time nor the desire to rest on their laurels. Instead, they are exploring a number of new avenues in rice research, which they hope will contribute to at least a doubling of Africa’s rice production within a decade after the price crisis of 2008.

“The NERICA varieties are a huge success?but breeding never stops!? said Dr. Marco Wopereis, deputy director general of AfricaRice. “It’s good to know that we have new products in the pipeline.”

Some of the new products Wopereis refers to will likely be derived using molecular breeding approach. AfricaRice scientists are already using this approach to introduce resistance to disease and other stresses into some of Africa’s most popular rice varieties.

A continent-wide Rice Breeding Task Force will soon expand that work, while strengthening the breeding capacity of national research organizations, with support from the Japanese government and other donors. Molecular breeding offers a cost-effective alternative to genetic transformation of rice, for which the required facilities and national regulatory frameworks are lacking.

In other research, AfricaRice is going back to the origins of NERICA, with the aim of using more recent breeding procedures to create new varieties that better exploit the genetic potential of the indigenous African rice, including its strong ability to compete with weeds. This work reflects a growing recognition of the “need to exploit the treasure trove that is in African rice germplasm,” as AfricaRice plant breeder Mandè Semon put it. Toward that end, researchers have undertaken extensive evaluations of the Center’s 2,300 African rice samples, including O. glaberrima as well as O. barthii, a wild plant related to cultivated African rice.

To ensure that new rice varieties satisfy farmers’ demands, AfricaRice continues to use a method called “participatory varietal selection,” in which farmers choose lines from a demonstration plot planted in their village. Having worked well throughout West and Central Africa in the development of NERICAs, this method remains essential for delivering to farmers the varieties they want and need. Equally important is the introduction of integrated crop management, through a method referred to as “participatory learning and action research,” which enables farmers to derive greater benefits from new rice varieties.

In addition, AfricaRice is making a strong push, through training and promotion of effective seed laws and systems, to overcome the scarcity of high-quality rice seed, which Seck called “one of the biggest constraints to the successful use of improved varieties.”

“Africa’s dependence on rice imports is no longer sustainable,” he said. “The time has come to transform rice production into an engine for economic growth across the continent.”

The Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) is a leading pan-African research organization working to contribute to poverty alleviation and food security in Africa through research, development and partnership activities. Supported by the CGIAR, it is also an autonomous intergovernmental association of African member countries. For more information, please visit

The CGIAR is a strategic agricultural research alliance dedicated to generating and applying the best available knowledge to stimulate agricultural growth, raise farmers’ incomes, and protect the environment. It supports 15 research centres worldwide conducting groundbreaking work to nourish the future. For more information, please visit

Source: The Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice)

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