Lilongwe, Malawi
August 9, 2007
Charles Mkoka,
SciDev.Net
Sub-Saharan Africa could boost its rice production with the
announcement of increased collaboration between three of the
world's leading international rice research institutes.
The centres — the Africa Rice
Center (WARDA) based in Benin, the
International Centre for
Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) based in Colombia and the
Philippines-based International
Rice Research Institute (IRRI) — announced their commitment
to bring the best of science and experience in Africa, Latin
America and Asia to address the major challenges faced by
Africa's rice growers.
Africa currently imports about 40 per cent of its rice to
satisfy local demand. With rice prices expected to double in the
next couple years due to shrinking rice reserves, increasing
African rice production is essential.
"By harmonising our activities we can cover the whole continent,
have critical mass [of rice scientists], address most of the
problems facing rice [in Africa], and at the end of the day we
can have a very high impact," said Papa Abdoulaye Seck, WARDA's
director general, in a press release.
"Some of the agro-ecologies in Asia, Latin America and Africa
are similar and rice farmers in developing countries face
similar challenges. Therefore, a successful programmatic
alignment where the comparative advantages of these centres are
combined can have a large-scale impact in Africa," Shellemiah
Keya, director general for research at WARDA, told SciDev.Net.
The centres have proposed creating an umbrella consortium — the
sub-Saharan Africa Rice Consortium (SARC) — to bring together
already existing research networks in Africa and include
countries not covered by these networks.
SARC will address high priority issues for rice research and
development in Africa, such as improving rice varieties and
farmers' access to them, increasing the number of rice
scientists in the region and improving collaboration.
The director generals of WARDA, CIAT and IRRI issued a joint
statement saying that the initiative creates a united front for
rice research and a way of channelling technology and
information from international research to countries and farmers
in the region.
RELATED RELEASE:
African rice
production gets major boost
La production
rizicole en Afrique connaît une promotion importante
Other news from:
- Africa Rice
Center (WARDA)
-
International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)
- International Rice
Research Institute (IRRI) |
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