Emmanuel Goujon, Bouake | Tuesday
A SPECIALLY developed hybrid rice for Africa, the result of 10 years of research and a fusion of a local and an Asian strain, has spawned hopes of improving the continent’s food security.
Nerica, an acronym for New Rice for Africa, has been developed by the West Africa Rice Development Association (Warda), a body created in 1971 with the backing of 11 countries and international organisations. The association has also benefitted from European and Japanese funding.
Warda scientists have succeeded in creating a hybrid of the African rice, oryza glabarima, and an Asian variety, oryza sativa.
“Nerica has been welcomed by farmers for its yield and its taste … it is a perfumed rice and one variety here has been named Bonfani, which means good food in the local Baoule language,” Warda scientist Guei said.
He said Nerica would help West African countries, almost all of which import varying degrees of rice, to become self-sufficient.
According to the “discoverer”, Sierra Leonean professor Monty Patrick Jones, the biggest problem was ensuring a big yield.
“Normally whenever you cross two types you face tremendous problems of fertility,” he said, adding that scientists had overcome this hurdle through a series of genetic procedures.
“We thought that we should develop varieties which should as much as possible resemble traditional varieties,” he said.
Jones said African farmers had been “holding on” to the traditional rice for 40 years, despite poor yields.
He said the problem was that “after 40 years of varietal research programmes, we had developed varieties based on an improved management system which means good land preparation, application of fertilizers, insecticides etc.”
Nine out of ten farmers in the region don’t use “external inputs” such as fertilisers “because they are very poor”. The new strain was developed keeping this fact in mind, he added.
Gaston Sangare, a Malian overseeing the development of Nerica at a location some 40 kilometres from Bouake, Ivory Coast’s second-biggest city, said early tests were encouraging.
The new variety is being developed over 600 hectares along with 2,000 local varieties of rice.
“We have developed seven types of Nerica strains and we are working on producing seeds so that we can popularise it,” he said.
Warda scientist Robert Guei said: “It allows farmers to have two harvests of rice and grow another crop… the rice has more nutritional value and is richer in proteins,” he said, adding that it combined the best qualities of African and Asian rice.
A Warda booklet said Nerica had derived “from its African parent… profuse early growth (which means fewer weeds and reduced labour input from women) and resistance/tolerance to local stresses.
“From its Asian parent, it inherited greater grain production and retention on the plant. It has proved to be particularly well-suited to low-input conditions”.
However, local rice cultivator Georges Kouassi Kouame, said the new rice had yet to take off in the regionn.
“Neirica has not become very popular. People here say the Boauke 189 (rice variety) is sufficient,” he said.
Nerica is already being grown in Guinea and Ivory Coast and it is due to be introduced on a large scale in Togo, Benin, Nigeria. State authorities in Uganda and Zimbabwe are investigating the merits of the new strain. – AFP