AfricaRice Unveils New Rice Varieties for Africa

The Africa Rice Center's (AfricaRice) Breeding Task Force released new generation of high-performing rice varieties under a new brand called 'ARICA' which stands for 'Advanced Rice Varieties for Africa.' The Breeding Task Force comprises international and national rice breeders from 30 African countries and operates as part of the Japan-funded project Developing the Next Generation of New Rice Varieties for Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.

Since the process of selection of promising breeding lines is time- consuming, the Africa Rice Breeding Task Force, which was set up in 2010, has adopted a systematic and multi-environment testing approach to increase its efficiency and efficacy. In addition to rice breeders, farmers, members of national variety release committees and other stakeholders participate in the evaluation. Five ARICA varieties were selected based on a rigorous evaluation of elite rice lines across the African continent. All these ARICAs outyielded the most popular check varieties in the trials.

See AfricaRice's news release at http://africarice.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/new-generation-rice-varieties-unveiled-for-africa/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter.