African Science Produces Results - Rice for Africa: NERICAs
Rice is a staple crop for Africans but many farmers had given up on the traditional African varieties as they have a very small yield. Asian varieties were introduced to Africa but differences in humidity and plant structure require farmers, primarily women and children, to spend more hours weeding.
In 1991, in the Africa Rice Center (WARDA) in Bouake, Cote d'Ivoire, Monty Jones initiated a biotechnology-based program to combine the best traits of the Asian and African rices, using gene banks that hold seeds of 1500 African rices, which had faced extinction as farmers abandoned them for higher-yielding Asian varieties. By mid-1990 scientiststies have developed New Rices for Africa (NERICAs).
WARDA reported that genetic differences in the two species made breeding difficult but also gave the new rices high levels of heterosis or hybrid vigor. The NERICAs inherited wide, droopy leaves from their African parent, which smother weeds in early growth. The new rice varieties are taller, have higher yield by 25-250%, grow better on on infertile, acid soils, and also have about 2% more body-building protein than their African or Asian parents.
More than 1300 farmers planted the new rices in Guinea in a 1998 program and in 2000, the rice varieties were introduced to other West Africa countries.
Read more:
http://www.warda.cgiar.org/publications/KBtext.pdf
http://www.warda.cgiar.org/publications/NERICA8.pdf
World Bank News