July 16, 2008 — For African governments and consumers struggling to cope with recent dramatic increases in the price of rice, some good news has finally arrived.
Varieties of New Rice for Africa (NERICA®), a high yield, stress resistant rice developed in the 1990s by the Africa Rice Center, contributed to a six percent increase in the continent’s rice output during 2007, according to a recent report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Though Africa’s rice production still lags behind demand, the increase represents an important advance, demonstrating the region’s potential for rice improvement.
The good news must be viewed against a worrisome backdrop of rapidly expanding rice consumption in Africa. The region imports 40 percent of its rice supplies, accounting for a third of the rice traded in global markets. In 2006, when prices were much lower, Africa’s rice imports cost US$2 billion. Because of this extreme dependence on imported rice, soaring prices, while posing hardship for people across the developing world, hit African rice consumers especially hard, provoking food riots in several of the region’s major rice-importing countries.
“Relying so much on rice from other countries is a recipe for disaster,” said Papa Abdoulaye Seck, director general of the Benin-based Africa Rice Center (WARDA), one of 15 centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a strategic partnership sustained by 64 members, including the World Bank.
Farmers in Guinea harvest their NERICA crop.
Several Countries Benefit
The new rice varieties combine the high yield potential of Asian rice (Oryza sativa) with the stress resistance of African rice (Oryza glaberrima). The result of this combination is a tough, locally adapted rice best suited to upland or dryland environments, which account for about 70 percent of Africa’s rice farms.
NERICA® varieties are already planted on more than 200,000 hectares of land in several African countries. Over the last three years, they have been disseminated through farmer participatory schemes as part of the US$35 million, five-year NERICA® Project, managed by WARDA, with support from the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Japanese government and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Clapping hands and smiling faces: NERICA's impact goes far beyond statistics. A farm family in Benin applauds the research that led to the development of NERICA.
The project has helped spread improved rice varieties in about 30 African countries, focusing particularly on seven – Benin, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. In addition, the project has trained 1,225 technicians and taught 6,500 farmers -- more than half of them women -- to produce high-quality seed.In 2007, Guinea achieved a record harvest of 1.4 million tons -- five percent more than in the previous year and the country’s largest rice harvest ever -- mainly because of massive government support for NERICA® dissemination. Domestic rice production now covers about 70 percent of the country’s consumption.
The government of Nigeria announced that its rice imports had declined from two million tons in 2003-2004 to less than one million in 2005-2006. Officials in Uganda reported that the country had reduced rice imports from 60,000 tons in 2005 to 35,000 in 2007, saving roughly $30 million.
The Future for Rice Farming
The results of the NERICA® Project were presented and discussed during the fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in Yokohama, Japan, where world leaders and development experts met in late May to consider the continent’s most pressing development issues, including the current food price crisis. One concrete outcome was the Coalition for Africa Rice Development, which seeks to double sub-Saharan Africa’s rice production within a decade.
This farmer and thousands more in Benin are delighted by their NERICA harvests.
Another initiative aimed at achieving rapid growth in Africa’s rice production was launched by WARDA jointly with four major development agencies after the FAO World Food Summit held in early June. Its central aim is to greatly increase the supply of improved seed available for sowing in 2009. For this purpose, the project will improve dissemination of seed and fertilizer and of improved crop management practices, operating within the framework of the FAO Soaring Food Prices Initiative on the basis of action plans developed for 11 countries.
“We’re convinced that the future for rice farming lies in Africa,” said Seck. “This continent has more potential than any other area of the world because of its land and water resources. Our studies have found that local rice production under irrigated conditions can be as competitive as in Asia and much cheaper than in the USA.”
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