In a miniature garden at the Entebbe Botanical beach garden, which is about 40 kilo metres from Kampala, a few yellowish plants are trying to become accustomed to their new milieu.
John Mulumba Waswa a plant grower and head of the National Generic Centre at Entebbe says they are genus of wild rice assortments composed from Uganda’s forests and they are now being simulated and the species may be extorted to form a new type of rice. He added that these rice species have genes that enable them fight against diseases like yellow mottle and notorious rice disease and he wishes to get them to use them in developing new types of rice to improve on the existing rice.
The rice yellow mottle virus is common in Uganda and the biggest threat to the country’s move to become a major rice producer. According to the European Journal of Plant Pathology, the virus stunts the growth of the plant, causing “crinkling, mottling and yellowish streaking of the leaves.
Uganda yields about 180,000 metric tons of rice compared to local demand for the cereal that stands at 240,000 metric tons. Statistics from the Uganda revenue authority show that the East African country spends 60 million dollars per annum on rice imports to coat the demand shortage. Nevertheless, the introduction of the New Rice for Africa (NERICA) – rice developed by the West Africa Rice Development Association to improve the yield of African rice diversities – has helped to cub the demand. The project to perk up local rice yields to develop disease defiance and early ripeness varieties is part of a wider program to change Uganda from a rice importer to a regional exporter.
Asea told IPS that more rice types like Super , congo , among others will be picked and a gene bank or germ plasma will be developed for more research. Asea added that there is a plan to shorten the period of maturity for the rice types that we have in Uganda from 8 months to 3 -4 months.
However Dr. David Kamukama whose is the vice chairman of- National Organic Agriculture Movement in Uganda says that the country may lose out on the regional market by going GM when other countries in the in the Common Market for East Africa region oppose the idea. Uganda’s biggest rice market is Southern Sudan and Rwanda who will not allow GMO’s. And the East African Community hasn’t harmonized their position on this. He deems that Uganda can improve its rice production without interfering with the present rice species by merely creating right of entry to markets to improve production and sensitizing farmers about better farming methods. But the project for GM rice is still going ahead. NACRRI received six million dollars from the republic of Japan in July for the construction of a regional centre for farmers and scientists majoring in rice production.
Under Japan’s African Development initiative it also launched the Coalition for African Rice Development. It is research collaboration on rice whose goal is to double rice production between 2008 and 2018. Asea hopes researchers will be able to develop a genetically modified rice variety soon. Salongo Waswa, a rice farmer in Wakiso district on the periphery of Kampala, is worried that the new rice varieties being promised may not be as tasty as the ones he has been growing for years.
Salongo Waswa is also concerned if he will become dependent on suppliers for seed, like is currently the case with the farmers of NERICA rice. “With the Supper rice you see here I just pick a few seeds from the last harvest which I plant and I don’t have to buy (more seed). I hope that will be the case with the new rice. But Entebbe Botanical garden’s John Mulumba Waswa says that the adaption of the wild rice is predictable because many crops in present day farming are as a result of taming into domestic in antediluvian times and later improved.
The wild rice grown and eroded from the Mabira natural forest in central Uganda may not be indigenous to Uganda but are alleged to have adapted to the climate here . It is a peculiarity that scientists suppose can be extorted and entrenched in potential varieties. Rice is one of the continental foods that Uganda produces and once improved, this will help the tourism industry stakeholders like hoteliers in a way that they will not have to import better quality rice from other countries but will instead purchase it from the local industry a factor that may help in reduction of food prices for in the Uganda tourism industry.
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