Beyond scientific innovation, experts say the development of clonal hybrid rice is capable of improving lives of millions of smallholder farmers, strengthen value chains, and reposition Africa on the global rice stage.
This assertion was made when AfricaRice hosted international delegation of leading scientists in Côte d’Ivoire, as part of the Clonal Rice Project, considered as an ambitious initiative aimed at developing clonal rice capable of maintaining hybrid vigour from one generation to the next.
Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and led by the Yazhouwan National Laboratory (China), the synthetic apomixis project marks a significant step toward a new era in food security for Africa.
According to experts, the innovation is a major scientific breakthrough for smallholder farmers, as current hybrids can provide yield gains of up to 25 per cent, but their adoption in Africa has long been limited by farmers’ reluctance to purchase new hybrid seeds each planting season.
Reports have it that the goal of the project is to stabilise hybrids using synthetic apomixis, a cutting-edge genome editing innovation that produces clonal seeds faithfully reproducing hybrid vigour from season to season. The initiative aims to deliver innovations that drive structural transformation — giving smallholder farmers long-term access to the benefits of heterosis.
If deployed at scale, the technology could provide farmers with sustainable access to high-performance seeds; reduce the yearly cost of purchasing hybrid seeds; strengthen seed value chains; improve the resilience of food systems to climate shocks; and accelerate Africa’s progress toward rice self-sufficiency.
The Director General, AfricaRice, Dr Baboucarr Manneh, said the technology represents one of the most promising advances for the future of rice cultivation in Africa, noting that it will make hybrid vigour more accessible, offering farmers higher-performing, more stable, and more affordable seeds.
He said: “I was delighted to see such a distinguished international team of scientists gathered here. Their commitment, combined with AfricaRice’s deep expertise in African agro-ecosystems, brings us closer each day to our ultimate goal: putting cutting-edge technology in the hands of African producers that can sustainably transform their future.”
It was gathered that the initiative would drive the future of biotechnology in Africa, as it aligns with an increasingly favourable continental landscape.
Many African countries — including Kenya, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Malawi, Ghana, and South Africa — have established national biosafety frameworks suited to innovations in genome editing.
Africa has learned from past experiences: the continent is determined not to miss the genetic-editing revolution, as the Clonal Rice Project positions Africa as a key actor in the responsible adoption of next-generation biotechnology.
Considered as a global scientific gathering that brought together some of the world’s leading institutions – Yazhouwan National Laboratory (Lead); Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (CAS); China National Rice Research Institute; Beijing Qi Biodesign Biotechnology Co., Ltd.; and AfricaRice (CGIAR), the meeting also welcomed several world-renowned scientific leaders and strategic partners, including Professor of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development at the University of Minnesota, USA, Dan Voytas, who doubles as the Director of the Centre for Precision Plant Genomics.
Others are Professor of Plant Developmental Biology and Director of the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGDB-CAS), Weicai Yang; Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences,Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and Foreign Member of the Royal Society, Jiayang Li; Qian Qian, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who established a germplasm bank with over 50,000 rice accessions; Dr Nicholas Bate, Senior Programme Officer at the Gates Foundation; and Deputy Director, Dr Qinghua Zhang, Gates Foundation China Office.
