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Uganda: Country Can Become a Rice Exporter
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New Vision (Kampala)
29 April 2008
Posted to the web 30 April 2008
Fred Ouma And Ronald Kalyango
Kampala
UGANDA could become a net international exporter of rice. This means the country would hedge itself from the impact of rising food prices and new restrictions on rice exports from Asian countries.
Thanks to the African rice breeders for the recent score of success in developing upland rice varieties and availing them to farmers. The development and release of stress-tolerant upland and lowland-irrigated rice varieties has led to the increase of rice production countrywide.
In March 2004, President Yoweri Museveni launched the Upland Rice Project with support from the United Nations Development Programme. Since then, statistics from the agriculture ministry show rice farming has grown from 4,000 farmers in 2004 to over 35,000 in 2007. Rice growing areas have also increased.
Uganda reduced its rice importation from 60,000 metric tonnes in 2005 to 35,000 metric tonnes in 2007, saving about $30m (sh51b), according to the Ugandan National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO).
Dr. Dennis Kyetere, the head of NARO, said African agriculture has always depended on mother nature. He was speaking at the inaugural meeting of the Rice Breeders Network in Kampala recently.
Researchers and seed companies from over 10 African countries attended.
"We have experienced 40 years of declining production and an increase in poverty. More than 200 million people are malnourished. This is not a Bible that we should continue quoting in our prayers. Our dependence on Asian rice imports is putting us at risk. We must make new varieties available and give farmers access to them," he said.
The meeting highlighted efforts to develop and release improved disease-resistant rice varieties and overcome the barriers that prevent new varieties from reaching farmers to improve food security.
According to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the delayed release of new varieties slows commercialisation and denies farmers access to new improved varieties.
AGRA is a partnership-based organisation working across sub-Saharan Africa to end rural poverty and hunger by increasing the productivity and sustainability of small-holder farming.
The delayed release also aggravates food insecurity and poverty among small-scale farmers.
Recent advances are largely a result of funding from the Nairobi-based AGRA. It also announced plans to support the development and release of new rice varieties in Mozambique, Kenya, Uganda, Mali, Nigeria and Malawi that will boost local production, improve regional food security and reduce Africa's over-reliance on rice imports from Asia.
In Uganda and Tanzania, new Nerica varieties were released to farmers in 2007 and as a result, there has been increased production and consumption on the farm level.
From the earlier releases of three upland rice varieties in Uganda in 2002 courtesy of the Rockefeller support, farmers were able to reap $9m (sh15b) in 2005.
Recent success and future efforts focus on breeding locally-adapted varieties of Nerica, which is a resilient, high-yielding cross of African and Asian rice species.
As an upland rice, Nerica is not restricted to growing in paddies, thus enabling farmers to grow rice in places that no one before thought possible. But to make use of Nerica, farmers need locally-adapted varieties that are early-maturing, disease-resistant, have the aroma and taste that local communities prefer and spikes to protect the rice from birds.
The meeting also addressed efforts to tackle diseases such as rice yellow mottle virus and rice blast that are devastating farmers in several regions.
In Kenya recently, rice farmers lost up to half of this season's crop.
Meanwhile, Tanzania breeder Dr. Nkonki Kibanda reported that the country's Department of Agricultural Services had identified local varieties resistant to rice yellow mottle virus, which can decimate 90% of the rice yield.
Kibanda expects new disease-resistant versions of farmers' favourite variety, Supa, to be available by 2009.
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Linking breeders to the private sector
The development of new varieties is only a first step. The second major challenge is multiplying large quantities of the new varieties and getting them to farmers.
This requires breeding institutes to work closely with small private seed companies, helping to build an African private seed sector that is responsive to the needs of small-holder farmers.
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