We need to adopt rice cultivation practices

About half of the country’s rice is grown by smallholder farmers in Tabora, Shinyanga and Morogoro, regions of the central corridor.

With large amounts of suitable, unfarmed arable land, a high rate of self-sufficiency and current low yields, Tanzania hopes to increase rice production and become a large net-exporter of rice for the region and for Africa.

In many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, rapid urbanisation has led to a surge in demand for rice in urban areas. However, most of the supply depends on imported rice since rice is not a staple food in the rural areas and domestic production is still limited.

In order for domestically grown rice to compete with imported rice, improvements in the productivity of rice cultivation are essential.

Although rice production has been expanding in some countries its productivity is quite low because basic rice cultivation practices have not been widely adopted.

To raise this low level of productivity, training on basic production practices along with small irrigation schemes is of paramount importance to farmers.

The first hybrid rice varieties developed in sub-Saharan Africa are yielding up to four times more than other improved varieties, say scientists, who are using web-based tools to identify the right climate conditions to maximise harvests.

The 15 hybrids bred in Kenya and Tanzania are also tolerant to diseases and the high temperatures found in Kenya's western Lake Region and coastal areas. In addition farmers have a narrow choice of improved varieties. Most of them were planting varieties that were released more than 30 years ago.

Improved inbred rice varieties, such as the New Rice for Africa (NERICA) lines are already in use on African farms. Currently, the average yield of inbred rice varieties in sub-Saharan Africa is 2.3 tonnes per hectare. But in trials, some of the new hybrids have produced between 7 and 10 tonnes per hectare.

One potential problem is that seeds harvested from hybrid plants are not recommended for replanting because their superior performance is lost due to genetic separation, resulting in a lower yield.

That means farmers do not save seed from their harvest to plant again, and seed companies must cross the parent materials every season to produce new hybrid seed for planting.

Apart from Egypt, which has been producing hybrid rice on a commercial scale for over a decade, no other African country had succeeded in developing its own local hybrid rice.

Egyptian farmers have improved the country's average rice production to almost 10 metric tonnes per hectare, a feat praised by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation and others.

Farmers who are participating in the trials in East Africa are eagerly waiting for the hybrid seeds to be officially released for commercial use - probably in less than a year, after two seasons of trials by KEPHIS.

Kenya and Tanzania will be the first beneficiaries of the new hybrid varieties. Trials will then be rolled out in other countries in East, West and southern Africa.