Is Ghana fixated with imported rice?
 One story that I
have been doing a good deal of reading up on lately is Ghana's near insatiable
demand for foreign imported rice-namely from South East Asia. The reason that
it is so interesting is that Ghana,
like two hands full of other African nations spends a large portion of its GDP
each year on importing rice. It is estimated that Ghana spends roughly $100
million on rice imports annually or about $300.00 per Ghanaian. This is quite a
significant number considering two things:
1) Ghana's historic love for
her own locally produced meals like fufu, banku, kenkey, red red, and a few
other choice meals that the country is famous for within its region.
2) Ghana at one time, less than 35 years ago, was actually a net
exporter of locally produced short grain rice.
So what has happened to
Ghana, one might ask? Well, the consensus seems to be that Ghana's well
traveled generation of young and hip trend setters acquired a love for the
longer grain rice while abroad and then brought their new fondness for the food
back to Ghana. And since then the staple has gradually gained in popularity to
the point that it is now commonly subsituted for some of Ghana's more
traditional meals-many of which by Western standards take a very long time to
prepare.
So what is the problem with foreign grown rice in
Ghana?
In and of itself, there is not really an inherent problem
with Ghana or any other African nation importing rice from other countries.
However, if enough of it is imported, then it puts downward price pressure on
Ghana's local agricultural producers who are the engine of the country's
economy. One reason for this is because the long grain rice coming into Ghana
from abroad is typically sold below what it would cost to produce the same
quantities and qualities of rice in Ghana. In the US this is possible because
of government subsidies to farmers, which cause large surpluses and in Asia it
is presumed to be because of the low cost of labor and the largely intact road
infrastructure.
Ghanaian farmers have tried to find ways to reduce the cost
of producing rice so that instead of it costing $230 a ton to produce it would
be more competitive with the $205 a ton that the American imported rice is sold
at. However, because of the soil, climate, and weeds it is extremely difficult
to do.
Enter Dr. Monty Jones
Dr. Monty Jones, a world
renowned Sierra Leonean scientist, whose research is focused upon rice
fertility.
Here is what the World
Food Prize says about him:
"Born in Sierra Leone, Dr. Jones was educated there, receiving a
bachelor's degree from the University of Sierra Leone, and at Birmingham
University in the United Kingdom, where he took a master's degree in 1979, a
doctorate in plant biology in 1983, and an honorary Doctor of Science in 2005.
He began his career in 1975 with the West Africa Rice Development Agency, one of
the international research centers sponsored by the Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research, in its Mangrove Swamp Rice Research Project
in his home country.
He continued to work as a rice breeder and researcher
through the 1980s. In 1991, Dr. Jones was appointed head of the Upland Rice
Breeding Program at WARDA, then located in Côte d'Ivoire. It was in this
position in 1994 that he made his exceptional breakthrough achievement in
combining Asian and African rice varieties to develop NERICA, a "New Rice for
Africa" uniquely suited to poor African rice farmers. Dr. Jones had, since the
1970s, seen that native African rice varieties grew most successfully in the
continent's alkaline soils and conditions of varying moisture; however, their
yield potential was remarkably low, especially compared to the rice varieties
that had been introduced from Asia some 500 years earlier. These more productive
varieties, in contrast, were limited by low resistance to African pests and
diseases and poor adaptation to the soil and climate.
Combining the species
had been attempted before, but never with success; early in the cross-breeding
process, the progeny rice varieties always developed sterility. Dr. Jones led
his staff to organize and classify all available rice varieties – including
1,500 accessions of the native O. glaberrima species, which were in danger of
extinction. From this collection, Dr. Jones and his team began the painstaking
process of selecting parents for combination traits, crossing them to produce
offspring, and back crossing the offspring to fix varietal traits from the two
species and overcome the genetic barrier. After three years of research and
work, the first stable and fertile cross was produced.
With the ability to
resist weeds, survive droughts, and thrive on poor soils gained from its African
parent, and the trait of higher productivity from its Asian ancestor, NERICA is
a crop capable of increasing farmers' harvests by 25 to 250 percent. It has been
especially valuable in the drier upland regions, where much of West Africa's
rice is grown and yields can now reach 4 to 6 tons per hectare. In addition,
its three-month harvest time – as opposed to the six months required by its
parent species – allows African farmers to harvest NERICA rice during the annual
"hunger period" and double-crop it with nutritionally rich legumes and
vegetables or high-value fiber crops in one growing season. For the consumer,
especially poor or malnourished families, NERICA provides increased amounts of
protein at a lower price. The nutritional, economic, and political impact of
NERICA on countries that have been importing $1 billion of rice annually is
difficult to overstate."
In another article written by a BBC
writer, Will Ross, we hear some of the challenges seen by farmers. Will Ross writes,
"...For the equivalent of around $2, the miller is woken up and a
sack of last year's Nerica crop is poured into the small diesel fuelled machine.
What comes out of the shoot does not impress Kofi Dartey. "Many of the grains
are broken, there are still some husks amongst the rice, and for the Ghanaian
market the grains are too short," he says. It would seem that Nerica rice is
still very much work in progress, but the Africa Rice Centre based in Benin aims
to keep improving the seed. 'Hooked' The competition is tough. In Kumasi's
central market there is no shortage of rice. Women sit behind 50kg sacks of
rice marked "Produce of Thailand" or "USA Grain"..."
What Exactly is NERICA?
So what is it that
makes the rice so different than whats already there? Well, here's what World Changing says
about this new rice species that Dr. Jones created,
"NERICA mixes African rice (Oryza glaberrima), which is highly
resistant to drought and local pests, but has a very low yield (which in turn
leads to widespread "slash and burn" style farming), and Asian rice (Oryza
sativa), which has a very high yield per plant, but is much more sensitive to
environmental conditions (which leads to increased use of pesticides). These two
species of rice do not cross naturally or with traditional hybridization
techniques; the genetic differences are just too much. Jones began a
biotechnology-based program in 1991, and by the mid-1990s had developed
different strains of a hybrid rice combining the best aspects of both parent
species."
Here's a little bit more on NERICA from Timbuktu
Chronicles,
"Developed by Monty Jones the award winning"...NERICA is a
technology from Africa for Africa. It is perfectly adapted to the harsh growing
environment and low-input conditions of upland rice ecologies in sub-Saharan
Africa (SSA), where smallholder farmers lack the means to irrigate and apply
chemical fertilizers or pesticides..." In addition "...Nerica lines yield around
1.5 to 2.5 tonnes of rice per hectare, compared with an average of only one
tonne or less for traditional African varieties. And, with good land preparation
and application of fertilisers, yields may be doubled. Tolerance to weeds, pests
and diseases has also been retained in the Nerica varieties, and they mature in
only half the time (90 days) of traditional varieties so that farmers can grow a
second crop, such as beans, which increases soil fertility and provide valuable
food during the 'hunger' season...",New
Agriculturist."
In conclusion I am very optimistic about
the potential that the future holds in store for NERICA in Ghana and across the
African continent. I think that it will take much more grassroots marketing and
instruction with the farmers themselves on the how's and why's of NERICA for to
take strong root in Africa. If this scalability were to come about,
then perhaps in about 10 or 15 years we will hear of Dr. Monty Jones being
credited with bringing domestic rice surpluses back to Ghana.
Ghana:
Dr. Monty Jones Ending the Fixation with Imported Rice
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