*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.