Guinea - Speeding up Technology Transfer to Rice Growers

In Guinea, improving the productivity of upland rice is a key challenge for the national agricultural services. Though rice is the main staple in Guinea, low yields make the country highly dependent on rice imports that it can ill afford. While the...

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Main Author: World Bank
Format: Brief
Language:English
Published: Washington, DC 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/1998/12/13779426/guinea-speeding-up-technology-transfer-rice-growers
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9879
id okr-10986-9879
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-98792021-04-23T14:02:47Z Guinea - Speeding up Technology Transfer to Rice Growers World Bank AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AGRICULTURAL SERVICES COMMERCIAL SEED CROP CROPS ECOSYSTEMS EXTENSION EXTENSION AGENTS FARM FARMER FARMERS FERTILIZER GERMPLASM LIVESTOCK NEW TECHNOLOGIES REGIONAL CONTROL RICE RICE VARIETIES SEED SEED INDUSTRY YIELDS In Guinea, improving the productivity of upland rice is a key challenge for the national agricultural services. Though rice is the main staple in Guinea, low yields make the country highly dependent on rice imports that it can ill afford. While the national agricultural research system (Institute de Recherche Agronomique de Guinee, IRAG), did not have improved technology available, the West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA), located in neighboring Cote d'Ivoire, had made a major breakthrough. It was developing inter-specific rice varieties that combined the best characteristics of the high-yielding Oryza Sativa varieties of Asian origin with those of the hardy Oryza Glaberrima varieties indigenous to Africa. Though the results looked promising, the normal approach of first testing new varieties at research stations and only then releasing them for on-farm trials and then to extension will have taken years. To speed up the process, Guinea's national extension service (Service National de la Promotion Rurale et de la Vulgarisation) teamed up with IRAG in a pilot program that brought promising varieties from WARDA concurrently to evaluations on IRAG stations and to on-farm trials. The participatory pilot program was supported by the World Bank and the Special Program for African Agricultural Research (SPAAR). 2012-08-13T09:46:44Z 2012-08-13T09:46:44Z 1998-12 http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/1998/12/13779426/guinea-speeding-up-technology-transfer-rice-growers http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9879 English Africa Region Findings & Good Practice Infobriefs; No. 35 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ World Bank Washington, DC Publications & Research :: Brief Publications & Research Africa Guinea
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH
AGRICULTURAL SERVICES
COMMERCIAL SEED
CROP
CROPS
ECOSYSTEMS
EXTENSION
EXTENSION AGENTS
FARM
FARMER
FARMERS
FERTILIZER
GERMPLASM
LIVESTOCK
NEW TECHNOLOGIES
REGIONAL CONTROL
RICE
RICE VARIETIES
SEED
SEED INDUSTRY
YIELDS
spellingShingle AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH
AGRICULTURAL SERVICES
COMMERCIAL SEED
CROP
CROPS
ECOSYSTEMS
EXTENSION
EXTENSION AGENTS
FARM
FARMER
FARMERS
FERTILIZER
GERMPLASM
LIVESTOCK
NEW TECHNOLOGIES
REGIONAL CONTROL
RICE
RICE VARIETIES
SEED
SEED INDUSTRY
YIELDS
World Bank
Guinea - Speeding up Technology Transfer to Rice Growers
geographic_facet Africa
Guinea
relation Africa Region Findings & Good Practice Infobriefs; No. 35
description In Guinea, improving the productivity of upland rice is a key challenge for the national agricultural services. Though rice is the main staple in Guinea, low yields make the country highly dependent on rice imports that it can ill afford. While the national agricultural research system (Institute de Recherche Agronomique de Guinee, IRAG), did not have improved technology available, the West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA), located in neighboring Cote d'Ivoire, had made a major breakthrough. It was developing inter-specific rice varieties that combined the best characteristics of the high-yielding Oryza Sativa varieties of Asian origin with those of the hardy Oryza Glaberrima varieties indigenous to Africa. Though the results looked promising, the normal approach of first testing new varieties at research stations and only then releasing them for on-farm trials and then to extension will have taken years. To speed up the process, Guinea's national extension service (Service National de la Promotion Rurale et de la Vulgarisation) teamed up with IRAG in a pilot program that brought promising varieties from WARDA concurrently to evaluations on IRAG stations and to on-farm trials. The participatory pilot program was supported by the World Bank and the Special Program for African Agricultural Research (SPAAR).
format Publications & Research :: Brief
author World Bank
author_facet World Bank
author_sort World Bank
title Guinea - Speeding up Technology Transfer to Rice Growers
title_short Guinea - Speeding up Technology Transfer to Rice Growers
title_full Guinea - Speeding up Technology Transfer to Rice Growers
title_fullStr Guinea - Speeding up Technology Transfer to Rice Growers
title_full_unstemmed Guinea - Speeding up Technology Transfer to Rice Growers
title_sort guinea - speeding up technology transfer to rice growers
publisher Washington, DC
publishDate 2012
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/1998/12/13779426/guinea-speeding-up-technology-transfer-rice-growers
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9879
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