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At the Yokohama Conference all hopes became alive of doubling Africa’s rice harvest within the next decade, a partnership led by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) on the 29th May, 2008, launched a project that will provide a variety of measures to increase rice production in the continent. Called the Coalition for African Rice Development (CARD), the project aims to drastically reduce Africa’s reliance on expensive rice imports through the development and distribution of the new resilient rice varieties for the continent’s smallholder farmers. The funding also will support investments in agricultural research and rural infrastructure.
“Rice represents Africa’s best opportunity for reduction of food imports,’’ said Dr. Namanga Ngongi, AGRA’s president, at the Tokyo International Conference for African Development (TICAD-IV) in Yokohama, “The price of rice and other grains in the international markets will stay at high levels for the foreseeable future. Innovative plans are called for that will contribute to improving Africa’s self-sufficiency in staple food grains, including rice. This new initiative will go a long way towards helping achieve this goal.” According to Mr. Kenzo Oshima, Senior Vice President of JICA, “Rice is the main staple food in Asia. Many Asian countries, including Japan, have a wealth of experience and knowledge about rice cultivation accumulated over centuries. Conditions prevailing in Africa and Asia are different in geography, climate, and socio-economy, so Asia’s experience may not be automatically transferable. Never less, we believe that there is considerable room for Asia-Africa solidarity and partnership so that we can share our experiences and deliver the best possible outcomes for Africa’s small-holder farmers.” He added, “Asia achieved a green revolution in the 1960s -1980s, and rice lay at the core of this great transformation.
Given the importance of rice as an African food staple and the recent success stories of NERICAs in countries like Uganda, we believe that rice will also play a key role in bringing a green revolution to Africa.” The demand for rice in sub-Saharan Africa is double the rate of population growth and consumption is growing faster than that of any other major staple food. During 2001 to 2005, rice consumption grew in sub-Saharan Africa by 5.84% and between the same period the average per capita rice consumption was 18 kg per year, according to a recent report by the Africa Rice Center in Cotonou, Benin, one of the project’s partners. Across Africa, local production has been unable to keep up with increases in demand. In the past 50 years, rice production in Africa has increased to 14.60 million tons from 3.14 million tons. Yet over the same period in Asia, rice production has increased on a much greater scale, to 570 million tons from 200 million tons. In addition, Africa’s increased production has required a massive expansion in cultivated land compared to Asia, raising concerns for rice production’s environmental impact. The surge in demand for rice has come at a time when production remained mostly stagnant. Perhaps most concerning to experts is sub-Saharan Africa’s “self-reliance ratio,” which is measured by the ratio of production over consumption, and the ever widening gap between rice production and consumption in Africa. According to the Africa Rice Center, the sufficiency ratio declined steadily over a 45-year period from 112% in 1961 to 61% in 2006, when the continent relied on the international rice market to satisfy about 39% of its rice consumption needs. “Today, less than half of rice consumed in sub-Saharan Africa is supplied locally,’’ said Dr. Ngongi. “In Uganda, 50 percent of rice is imported, which amounts to $60 million annually. Kenya imports nearly 86 percent and recent outbreak of rice blast has destroyed more than 5,000 acres of the crop under cultivation in Kenya’s main rice growing area. This is a major problem.” Rice Blast is a fungal disease that has had devastating effects in several rice growing regions, most recently in Kenya, where rice farmers are counting their losses after this season’s crop was attacked. Some have lost up to half of this season’s crop. The new initiative hopes to build on successful programs in countries like Uganda and Nigeria, where governments have cut rice imports in half over a few short years through investments in high yielding NERICA rice varieties that require little or no irrigation and are capable of growing in upland and lowland environments. Over the next four years, AGRA’s investments in rice will help to improve seed systems and soil health as well as link rice farmers to markets. A significant portion of the project will focus on training Africa’s next generation of rice breeders and bolstering seed production and multiplication programs in 14 African countries. The initiative will also provide funding to further investigate which fertilizer and integrated soil fertility management approaches work best in Africa’s various agro-ecological zones, as well as investments in fertilizer supply chain approaches to bring life to Africa’s degraded soils. The program will also invest in new post-harvest technologies to improve processing and infrastructure, including much-needed irrigation systems, and market information for grain traders. The initiative also hopes to begin introducing renewable energies such as solar and micro-hydropower in farmer communities that lack reliable energy sources needed to process the rice. “We would like to thank JICA for their leadership, and we thank our other partners, including NEPAD, the World Bank, the Africa Rice Center and FARA for joining forces to help bring about a green revolution in Africa,” said Dr. Namanga Ngongi, AGRA’s president. |
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