
The round table
debate, which was open to the public, was held on 28 September 2016 in
Montpellier, France. The other panelists were Jacqueline Rakotoarsoa, FOFIFA Research
Director, Madagascar; Gaoussou Traoré, Coordinator of the National Rice Center,
IER, Mali; and Fréderic Lançon, CIRAD Economist, France. The discussion was
moderated by Safi Douhi, journalist from Biofutur, a leading French magazine on
biotechnology.
“Achieving rice
self-sufficiency in Africa is a complex equation,” explained Dr Roy-Macauley, underlining
that the demand for rice, which is growing at more than 6% per year, is linked
to high urban population growth rate. He added that factors such as strong
lobbying of rice importers in Africa and low investments in the rice sector should
be also taken into account.
He highlighted that
the rice sector in Africa faces major challenges such as lack of favorable rice
policies in SSA, weak links among value chain actors, low mechanization and climate
change. At the same time there are big opportunities such as the high potential
of rice in the continent for food security and employment generation, untapped
natural resources in the form of land and water, the rich reservoir of genetic
resources in the African rice germplasm pool and the availability of genomic
and bioinformatic tools, which will help scientists address the need of sustainably
increasing rice yields in the continent.
Explaining that
AfricaRice’s strategic vision is to help Africa achieve almost 90%
self-sufficiency in rice by year 2020, Dr Roy-Macauley gave examples of research
outputs by AfricaRice and its partners, ranging from improved varieties, agronomic
practices, approaches, tools to policy findings as well as training efforts, which
are contributing to rice self-sufficiency in SSA.

He emphasized that
important new initiatives such as the CGIAR Research Program called “RICE” and
the African Development Bank (AfDB)-funded
“Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT)” project,
among others, with innovation platform approach and public-private partnerships
will help to do this.
Following his presentation,
Jacqueline Rakotoarsoa, FOFIFA Research Director, Madagascar and Gaoussou
Traoré, Coordinator of the National Rice Center, IER, Mali, made presentations
on the rice situation in their respective countries. Both Madagascar and Mali
are close to achieving rice self-sufficiency, although they still have some challenges
to overcome. Frédéric Lançon, CIRAD Economist, France, raised critical policy
issues relating to rice self-sufficiency in Africa.
The round table was
organized as a side event of the 14th International Symposium on Rice
Functional Genomics (ISRFG 2016), hosted by French research organizations in
Montpellier, France, 26-29 September 2016, which was attended by more than 300 participants
from around the world, including a delegation from AfricaRice.
The AfricaRice
delegation was led by the Director General accompanied by Deputy Director
General-Director of Research for Development, Etienne Duveiller, key scientists
of the Center’s Genetic Diversity and Improvement Program and communication
team.
Welcoming the
AfricaRice Director General and Deputy Director General to the opening ceremony,
Michel Eddi, CIRAD President Managing Director referred to the rice component
of the AfDB-funded “Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT)”
as an important initiative being implemented by AfricaRice to promote the use
of products emanating from upstream research in order to respond to the
challenges of rice self-sufficiency in Africa.
The Mayor of
Saint-Georges-d'Orques and vice president of Montpellier Agglomération Jean-François
Audrin, IRD Deputy Executive Director Jean-Marc Châtaigner and Director of
Agropolis Foundation Pascal Kosuth were the other speakers at the opening
ceremony.
AfricaRice scientists were actively involved in the ISRFG 2016 symposium,
which gave a high importance to young scientists. The opening lecture of this
symposium was delivered by AfricaRice Molecular Biologist Khady Nani Dramé, on
"Molecular breeding to boost rice production in Africa".
Baboucarr Manneh, AfricaRice Irrigated Rice Breeder and coordinator
for the African component of the Stress-Tolerant Rice for Africa and South Asia
(STRASA) and the Green Super Rice (GSR) projects, made a presentation on
"Genome-wide association studies to identify QTLs for yield and
yield-related traits of rice in the Sahel zone of Africa" under the theme
“Rice diversity harnessing for gene discovery and precision breeding”.
An AfricaRice exhibition booth with subject-specific posters and video
at ISRFG 2016 attracted many visitors interested to know about the Center’s
work and achievements relating to genetic diversity and improvement.
Publications on AfricaRice, the Global Rice Science Partnership (GRiSP) and
STRASA and GSR projects were distributed.
A workshop on African rice was also held at ISRFG to gather researchers,
who are interested in the potential of African rice, and to exchange ideas for
joint research.
AfricaRice and the French agricultural research institutes – CIRAD and
IRD – have a long history of partnership on rice research for development. They
are among the key architects of GRiSP along with IRRI, CIAT and JIRCAS. Prior
to the round table, Dr Roy-Macauley, Dr Duveiller and key AfricaRice scientists
had a technical partnership meeting with research leaders and
scientists from IRD and CIRAD, led by Jean-Luc Khalfaoui, CIRAD Director
General in charge of Research and Strategy.
The partnership meeting, which was moderated by CIRAD focal point for
rice-related research Nourollah Ahmadi, began with presentations on all the recent
and ongoing CIRAD and IRD joint projects with AfricaRice. This was followed by
discussions focusing on further strengthening the fruitful research collaboration
with the development of joint proposals on major emerging challenges relating
to the rice sector in Africa.
Related links :
- AfricaRice Director General leads round table debate on rice self-sufficiency in Africa at ISRFG 2016 side event
Audio podcast : https://www.podbean.com/media/player/23faa-6355ac
Powerpoint presentation : http://tinyurl.com/jmk3cgv - Jacqueline Rakotoarsoa, FOFIFA Research Director, Madagascar at ISRFG 2016 side event - round table debate
Audio podcast : https://www.podbean.com/media/player/3dkh2-6355a8 - Gaoussou Traoré, Coordinator of the National Rice Center, IER, Mali at ISRFG 2016 side event - round table debate
Audio podcast : https://www.podbean.com/media/player/9ckby-6355a7 - Fréderic Lançon, CIRAD Economist at ISRFG 2016 side event - round table debate
Audio podcast : https://www.podbean.com/media/player/ke5sw-6355a4 - AfricaRice Molecular Biologist Khady Nani Dramé, on "Molecular breeding to boost rice production in Africa". https://www.podbean.com/media/player/ti5xj-63096c?from=yiiadmin (Audio podcast)Baboucarr Manneh, AfricaRice Irrigated Rice Breeder presentation on "Genome-wide association studies to identify QTLs for yield and yield-related traits of rice in the Sahel zone of Africa" https://www.podbean.com/media/player/cjcc7-63096b?from=yiiadmin (Audio podcast)The opening ceremony included speeches from dignitaries representing the symposium hosts:• Jean-François Audrin, Mayor of Saint-Georges-d'Orques and vice president of Montpellier Agglomérationhttps://www.podbean.com/media/player/3h32f-630965?from=yiiadmin (Audio podcast)• Michel Eddi, President Managing Director, CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development), Montpellierhttps://www.podbean.com/media/player/bbedq-630966?from=yiiadmin (Audio podcast)• Jean-Marc Châtaigner, Deputy Executive Director, French Research Institute for Development (IRD)https://www.podbean.com/media/player/js27j-630967?from=yiiadmin (Audio podcast)• Pascal Kosuth, Director of Agropolis Fondation, Montpellierhttps://www.podbean.com/media/player/gdvcs-630968?from=yiiadmin (Audio podcast)
- Scenes from the 14th International Symposium on Rice Functional Genomics (ISRFG), Montpellier, France, 26 Sep 2016.
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