New Varieties to Help Improve Rice Productivity and Income-Generation for Resource-Poor Farmers
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria. December 23, 2013. In partnership with the University of Port Harcourt in Nigeria, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has released three lowland rice varieties - UPIA1, UPIA2, and UPIA3 - which are long grains of grade A, high-yielding, and resistant to some economic abiotic stresses such as iron toxicity and drought. The new varieties are also distinctive, uniform, and stable across all tested locations, and possess good agronomic traits such as resistance to lodging, early and medium maturity period, and acceptable heights, making them easy to integrate into the Nigerian farming system. They also meet the cooking quality requirements of Nigerian consumers.
Rice continues to grow in importance as a major staple across Africa, with rising consumer demand confirming this. However, its productivity is impeded by climate change as well as lack of ecological adaptation; spurring stakeholders such as AGRA to develop, register and release improved varieties to combat these challenges.
Dr. Toure Aboubacar, AGRA's Program Officer for Crop Improvement and Variety Adoption said: "AGRA's strategy to meet the needs of smallholder farmers across Africa is yielding great results. We are very happy that our support to national research institutions to develop, register and release improved varieties of staple crops such as rice is paying off as exemplified by the release of these three new rice varieties. Our work is aligned with the Nigerian government's policy on rice value chain development."
The UPIA varieties, which originated from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the Africa Rice Centre (AfricaRice), have various advantages, apart from being adaptable to lowland ecologies. For instance UPIA1, has a maturity period of 90 -105 days with a potential yield of 6.6 t/ha and pest-disease tolerance to gall midge and neck blast, which are common rice diseases. UPIA2, which has an outstanding characteristic of high yield and tolerance to iron toxicity and African rice gall midge, matures between 110 - 120 days with a potential yield of 8.0 t/ha. The third variety, UPIA3, matures in 90 - 100 days and has the capacity to yield 7.0 t/ha.
The release of these varieties has been made possible through AGRA's grant to the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and the hard work of Dr. Andrew A. Efisue, who managed a team of professional breeders. It took six years of intensive research work to develop, register and release the varieties. Having achieved this major milestone, AGRA will now engage in demonstration and awareness creation activities to prepare for a major commercialization of these new varieties which are expected to transform the farming lives of millions of rice farmers, not only in Nigeria, but across West Africa and beyond.
For more information, please contact:
Sylvia Mwichuli
Director, Communications and Public Affairs
Tel: +254.20.3675.000
Mobile: +254.736.880.620
smwichuli@agra.org
www.agra.org
