All-weather species like Nerica are cropping up as processing technology yielding fruits.
As African governments grapple with insufficient local rice production which obliges them to spend billions in imports to meet growing demand, researchers say they have inventions and innovations which if embraced, could reverse the sorry trends in a continent that is endowed with huge potentials.
The over 650 participants from 60 countries - including 36 countries from Africa and 24 from outside the continent, taking part in the third African Rice Congress in Yaounde say much is done in the laboratory which could be beneficial in the farms. At the Research Institute for Agricultural Development, IRAD, talk is about upland and lowland rice specie (Nerica) that are attracting many and boosting production.
According to Dorothy Malaa, Coordinator of Nerica project at IRAD, since 2008 that the new specie was introduced and has been producing about three tons per hectare for upland rice and six tons per hectare for lowland specie up from about two tons per hectare for the former species, many regions especially the Centre, South and East have got interested in rice production.
"Given that we need to process and sell what we produce, IRAD in partnership with Africa Rice, Common Fund for Commodity and the Canadian International Development Agency has put in place post-harvest processing technology to improve the quality of rice in the market," she said. That before 2008, Cameroon-made rice constituted less than 15 per cent of the national market and today it is over 30 per cent, Mrs Malaa said, testifies progress. "With this, we see a shift in production and we are sure that we will attain our consumption level," she sounded upbeat.
Besides Nerica, there are other species like Toks 31 and 45 and Tainan 5 in Ndop; IRAD 112 and ITAD 300 in Lagdo, there is IRI 46 in Yagoua and in Maroua, there is an upland variety, Sabota that was introduced in 2000. Meanwhile, in Tonga, there is the local variety. All of these, stakeholders say are doing well and need to be innovated and vulgarised.
Research is on course to bring a new variety called, "Arica" that may produce more than Nerica. "After the congress and with what we have gathered as experience, we will identify where the new specie could be grown and then put it on the market," Dorothy Malaa said. The Yaounde congress also served as an opportunity for other researchers to share their countries' experiences which could be copied to boost local production, processing and commercialisation.
These included water-saving and drought-resistant rice, among others. The greatest challenge for Cameroon however, remains vulgarising the research results. There is therefore need for frank collaboration between research institutes and agricultural extension services so that time, money and intelligence is not spent on research whose results rot in drawers while agricultural stakeholders import ill-adapted seeds and seedlings that at best render yields subsistent.
