Gitega, Burundi · July 2022 — The Institut des Sciences Agronomiques du Burundi (ISABU), in collaboration with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), released eleven improved rice varieties in July 2022, marking a significant step in Africa's efforts to deploy climate-resilient crop varieties tailored to local growing conditions. The release included three drought-tolerant varieties, alongside lines bred for enhanced nutritional value (high-zinc content) and resistance to major diseases such as Rice Yellow Mottle Virus (RYMV).
The release is part of a broader continental effort to move beyond the first generation of New Rice for Africa (NERICA) varieties — developed in the 1990s and 2000s — toward a more targeted, evidence-based deployment of climate-smart seeds designed for specific African ecosystems: upland, irrigated lowland, and rainfed lowland environments.
The ARICA Series and Africa's Rice Breeding Pipeline
The new varieties are part of the Advanced Rice Variety for Africa (ARICA) series, developed through the Africa Rice Breeding Task Force — a collaborative platform that brings together national agricultural research systems (NARS), AfricaRice, and international partners to evaluate and select the best cultivars for local farmers.
The ARICA varieties integrate multiple stress-tolerance traits, including:
- Drought tolerance: Enabling rice to survive and produce adequate yields under water-stressed conditions, increasingly important as climate variability intensifies across the continent.
- Flood tolerance: Using the SUB1 gene, which allows rice plants to survive complete submergence for up to two weeks — a critical trait for lowland areas prone to flash flooding.
- Disease resistance: Particularly against Rice Yellow Mottle Virus (RYMV), which can cause yield losses of up to 100 percent in susceptible varieties.
- Nutritional enhancement: High-zinc varieties address micronutrient deficiencies that affect millions of children in rice-dependent communities.
The Science Behind Drought Tolerance
Drought tolerance in rice is a complex, polygenic trait — meaning it is controlled by many genes, each contributing a small effect. Scientists use Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) mapping to identify specific chromosomal regions associated with drought tolerance, then use marker-assisted selection to combine these regions into elite breeding lines.
This approach, refined over decades at IRRI and AfricaRice, has enabled breeders to develop varieties that maintain yields under moisture stress without sacrificing performance under normal conditions — a critical balance, as farmers will not adopt a drought-tolerant variety if it underperforms in good years.
Bundling Seeds with Climate-Smart Practices
By 2022–2023, research had demonstrated that drought-resistant varieties alone are insufficient to ensure food security under climate stress. The emphasis shifted to bundling resilient seeds with climate-smart agricultural practices, particularly Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) irrigation.
AWD is a water management technique in which rice fields are alternately flooded and dried, rather than kept continuously flooded. This can reduce water use by 15–30 percent while maintaining or even increasing yields. Research trials conducted in 2023 in Mali — at sites including Selingue and Mbewani — showed that varieties like ARICA3 performed significantly better than local checks when combined with AWD irrigation.
| Practice | Water Savings | Yield Impact | Adoption Barrier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) | 15–30% | Maintained or increased | Requires water control infrastructure |
| Drought-tolerant varieties alone | Indirect | Stabilized under stress | Seed availability, farmer awareness |
| AWD + drought-tolerant varieties | 15–30% + stress resilience | Highest combined performance | Both infrastructure and seed access |
The AICCRA Scaling Model
The Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) project, funded by the World Bank, has been a key vehicle for scaling climate-smart rice technologies. AICCRA works through partnerships with national agricultural research systems, extension services, and farmer organizations to deliver bundled packages of improved seeds, water management practices, and agronomic advice.
In Mali, the project's approach of combining drought-tolerant varieties with AWD irrigation demonstrated that the bundled package was more effective at increasing yields and farmer income than either component alone — a finding with significant implications for how climate adaptation technologies are deployed across the continent.
Deepening International Partnerships
The Burundi release and broader ARICA programme reflect a deepening of international partnerships in African rice science. AfricaRice has established joint laboratories with institutions including the China National Rice Research Institute, aimed at accelerating the development of advanced, gene-edited, and hybrid rice varieties adapted to African conditions.
These partnerships bring access to cutting-edge breeding technologies — including CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, which enables precise modifications to specific genes associated with stress tolerance, disease resistance, and nutritional quality. While regulatory frameworks for gene-edited crops are still evolving in many African countries, several nations, including Nigeria and Kenya, have made progress in establishing biosafety regulations that could enable the deployment of these technologies.
From Breeding to Adoption
The gap between variety release and farmer adoption remains a persistent challenge. A new variety can take 5–10 years to move from official release to widespread farmer use, constrained by seed multiplication capacity, extension service reach, and market linkages. The Africa Rice Breeding Task Force and initiatives like AICCRA are working to compress this timeline through early-stage farmer participatory variety selection, rapid seed multiplication, and innovative delivery models.
The Burundi release of eleven varieties in July 2022 — with its combination of drought tolerance, nutritional enhancement, and disease resistance — represents a tangible output of this pipeline. Whether these varieties reach the farmers who need them, at the scale and speed required, will depend on the same factors that have long constrained African agricultural transformation: investment, infrastructure, and political will.
Sources
- IRRI, Eleven New Improved Rice Varieties Released in Burundi (July 2022) —
- AfricaRice, ARICA Variety Series —
- CGIAR/AICCRA, Effects of Drought-Tolerant Rice Varieties and Alternate Wetting and Drying Irrigation —
- CGIAR/AICCRA, Scaling Climate-Smart Rice in Mali (2022–2025) —
- Africa Rice Breeding Task Force —
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