New Rice for Bintu

Bintu, like most women in western Africa, is a farmer. For years, she grew rice on her small plot of land-and for years, she was disappointed by meager returns.

The Asian variety she cultivated, while more productive than traditional African rice, is not as hardy. It couldn't compete with the weeds, and after one or two crops, she would be forced to clear more land.

Low soil fertility, slash-and-burn cultivation practices and a limited choice of varieties trapped Bintu in a vicious cycle of low productivity, food insecurity and a minimal income that prevented her from improving her prospects.

But as Bintu struggled to feed her family, scientists were developing a new strain of rice that would combine the best aspects of the disease and stress-tolerant African variety and the more productive Asian varieties. The West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA) now known as the Africa Rice Center, which is supported by the CIDA through its Multilateral and Global Programs, is one of the 16 international agricultural centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research where plant breeders were working with their gene bank of more than 1,500 African varieties to cross the two rice types. Through a technique known as embryo rescue, they were able to overcome the sterility problems that have plagued research along these lines for many years.

The resulting group of varieties―the New Rices for Africa or NERICAs―have a shorter growth cycle, are weed, pest and drought-resistant, and have good flavour, which is a key consideration for the west African community.

When rice was a luxury, it was served at weddings and other festivals; today, it contributes more calories and protein than any other cereal, equal to that from roots and tubers combined. With the population growing at 3 percent a year, demand for rice is increasing faster than anywhere else in the world. But because local production has not kept up with demand, countries are forced to use their limited reserves of foreign exchange to import large quantities of rice.

Research has shown that in some environments, a number of the NERICAs appear to yield significantly more than varieties currently in use. Jim Sumberg, WARDA's Acting Director of Research, suggests that "the job now is to match individual NERICA varieties with the environments to which they are best suited, and also to identify the suite of 'complementary technologies' which will allow the full potential of these varieties to be utilized. NERICAs have a real potential to reduce the gap between production and demand, and, in so doing, to offer to Bintu and thousands of rice farmers like her new opportunities for increased food security and income generation."