A Continent-wide, Product-oriented Approach to Rice Breeding in Africa

(eds M.C.S. Wopereis et al.) 69 within countries. For example, surveys in Benin showed large differences between consumer preferences in urban and rural areas (see Futakuchi et al., Chapter 25, this volume). The challenge to develop new rice varieties for such diversity is huge and compounded by the fact that training and recruitment of rice breeders has been neglected across the continent since the 1990s. There are very few rice breeders left, and those remaining are mostly over 50 years of age, often with additional managerial responsibilities. In response to this tremendous lack of research capacity, in 1991 AfricaRice established rice-breeding Task Forces (collective research and development efforts by national and AfricaRice breeders, based on the principles of sustainability and build up of critical mass at the national and regional levels) catering to the different rice environments in West and Central Africa. These Task Forces were later merged into a regional rice research and development network in West and Central Africa (ROCARIZ). Funding for ROCARIZ ceased in 2005 and this has severely disrupted AfricaRice’s ability to collaborate and plan activities with national agricultural research system (NARS) partners. AfricaRice established a new, continentwide Rice Breeding Task Force in 2010, aiming Introduction