In order to
develop varieties of rice in sub-Saharan Africa, the African Agricultural
Technology Foundation (AATF) has signed a license agreement with Japan Tobacco
(JT), a leading international tobacco product company.
The license, as
revealed in a press statement made available to NaijaAgroNet, would enable smallholder
farmers in Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Uganda to use JT's transformation
technology to develop new rice varieties.
The project
which seeks to address major constraints facing rice production in Sub-Sahara
Africa region is tagged 'Nitrogen Use Efficient, Water Use Efficient and Salt
Tolerant (NEWEST) Rice Project.' Japan Tobacco would also offer free technology
in support of humanitarian aid projects.
Commenting on
the agreement, AATF Executive Director, Dr. Denis Kyetere affirmed that slow
growth in domestic rice production has contributed to the low output achieved
by farmers in the region.
“Several factors
are responsible for the low rice production. However, nitrogen deficiency and
drought have been cited as leading constraints to upland rice production, while
high salinity is increasingly becoming a major problem in many rice growing
areas of Africa,” he noted.
NaijaAgroNet recollects that the Food
and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) once revealed that rice production in the
region has stagnated at about 14.5 million tonnes per year, which is against
the annual consumption of 21 million tonnes, hence the need to boost
production.
The license,
JT’s Chief Strategy Officer, Mr. Masamichi Terabatake said would also enable
the use of JT's plant transformation technology for monocot species, PureIntro;
developing and deploying the nitrogen efficient, water efficient, and salt
tolerant rice products, free of royalties.
PureIntro is an
agrobacterium-mediated plant transformation technology that is recognized
worldwide as de facto standard for monocot transformation, which reduces
development costs and time.
Additionally, PureIntro
has been licensed by JT to more than 50 private and public entities worldwide
for numerous monocots including maize, rice, wheat, barley, sorghum, sugarcane,
switchgrass, miscanthus, forage and turf.
JT’s plant
biotechnology is independently managed from its core businesses including its
tobacco business and food business, thus not applied to its product development
conducted within those businesses.
AATF launched
the NEWEST Rice for Africa Project in 2008 with the objective to transform some
varieties of the New Rice for Africa (NERICA) to improve their productivity in
nitrogen-poor soils.
Experts say, provision
of smallholder rice famers with higher yielding varieties are well adapted to
the upland and lowland rice-growing areas in Africa, which also is another goal
for establishing NEWEST.
Other partners
in this private public partnership include Arcadia Biosciences who are
providing access to traits that confer nitrogen use efficiency, water use
efficiency and salt tolerance. The University of California is donating
required plant transformation technologies. The International Center for
Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the national agricultural research institutes
of Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda will conduct the necessary field
trials to test the performance of the new varieties.
The project is funded by the United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Kingdom’s
Department for International Development (DFID), and will initially be
implemented over a 10-year period.
Yinka Awosanya/LS
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