STRASA-Africa project meet discusses progress in identifying stress-tolerant rice lines and seed road maps

Participants from the Stress Tolerant Rice for
Africa and South Asia (STRASA) meeting,
AfricaRice, Cotonou, Benin -- 13 February 2015

The Stress Tolerant Rice for Africa and South Asia (STRASA) phase III Africa annual meeting was held on the 13th of February 2015 in Cotonou, Benin. Forty six (46) participants from 19 countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gambia. Ghana, Japan, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Philippines, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and USA) attended this meeting. Sixteen countries which are involved in the project were represented by their focal points.

Dr Gary Atlin, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Key personalities present at the meeting were Dr Gary Atlin of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Dr Marco Wopereis, Deputy Director General-Research and Development, AfricaRice; Dr Mathew Morell, Deputy Director General, IRRI; Dr Abdelbagi Ismail, Overall STRASA Coordinator, IRRI; Dr Baboucarr Manneh, STRAS-Africa Coordinator; and Dr Issoufou Kapran, Program Officer, Seed Production and Dissemination, AGRA. Representatives of several STRASA development partners such as CORAF/WECARD (West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development) and NAFASO (Private company in Burkina Faso) were also present.

The presentations and discussions focused on progress made by AfricaRice and IRRI-ESA project scientists and NARS partners in identifying and developing scalable products such as abiotic stress tolerant genes, breeding lines and varieties as well as dissemination strategies for the newly released stress tolerant varieties. In 2014, three drought tolerant lines were submitted for release in Mali (WAB 358-5-2-3-3-P, CNAX3031-78-2-1-1, WABC265) and 6 cold tolerant lines (Scrid 006-2-4-2-3, HR 17570-21-5-2-5-2-2-1-5, ARICA 9, WAS 62-B-B-14-1, PSBRC 96, WAS 203-B-B-1) were also submitted for release in Burundi and Mali. The need for greater integration of gender issues into the strategic results framework of the project was also emphasized at the meeting. Drafts Seed Road Maps developed by NARS partners for the newly released stress tolerant varieties were updated at the meeting. 

Dr Baboucarr Manneh highlights the achievements of the STRASA-Africa component.  Click here to listen to the podcast.