Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is one of the worlds major staple food crops. Domestication of rice (species of genus Oryza) likely occurred independently three times, in Asia, Africa and South America. The rice which originated in Asia (O. sativa L.) became a global food crop, and today supports half the world's population. Due to its importance for global food security, Asian rice has been widely studied. Yet, despite the importance of Asian Rice, African Rice (glaberrima Steud), is still cultivated and consumed in many African countries. Although, African rice has some unfavorable traits leading to low yields, it is better suited for environments such as deep-water lowlands and in drought-prone regions.
This book provides a comprehensive resource on Asian rices lesser-known sister African Rice. The book offers valuable information on African Rice as a food crop and as a genetic resource for Asian rice. African rice has the same AA genome as Asian rice and, although interspecies crosses are rare, several traits of the African rice species have been used to improve Asian rice. This book details successful cases of such breeding strategies and explores the potential of African Rice as genomic resource for Asian rice. The value of African rice is presented from both a biophysical aspect as well as the socio-economic aspects. The book also details the domestication of African rice as well as its historical dispersal process and current geographical distributions through anthropological, historical, phylogenetic, and genetic conservation studies.
.- Section 1: Introduction.
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Chapter 1-Sketching out African Rice Species (Oryza glaberrima Steud.).
.- Section 2: African Rice: Its Botanical, Physiological and Morphological
Characteristics.
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Chapter 2-Response of African Rice to Abiotic Environments.
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Chapter 3-Response to Biotic Environments I (Disease).
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Chapter 4-Response to Biotic Environments II (Insects and Other
Constraints).
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Chapter 5-Traits Worth to be Utilized Other Than Physiological Responses
to Environmental Factors.
.- Section 3: Varietal Development Exploiting African Rice.
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Chapter 6-Supporting the Conservation and Accelerated Use of African Rice
in Breeding Using Genetic and Genomic Technologies.
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Chapter 7-Interspecific Breeding of African Rice with Asian Rice and
Intraspecific Breeding of African Rice.
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Chapter 8-Wild Rice Species Indigenous in Africa and Their Use in Varietal
Development for Africa and beyond Africa.
.- Section 4: African Rice and African People.
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Chapter 9-Orphan Food Crop for People in Africa.
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Chapter 10-History of African rice: Phylogenetics, Domestication,
Dispersal, Abundance and In-situ Conservation.
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Chapter 11-Economic Values, Adoption and Impact of African Rice.
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Chapter 12-Understanding the Socioeconomic Factors Influencing the
Willingness to Pay for African Rice Seed and Investment in the In-situ
Conservation by Rice Farmers.
.- Section 5: Conclusion.
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Chapter 13-What Has Been and Will Be African Rice for People in Africa?.
Koichi Futakuchi is an Ecophysiologist and Scientific Advisor to Deputy Director General-Director Research for Innovation at Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice). He joined the center in 1997 as the Ecophysiologist. In the period of 20122025, he served as a Sustainable Productivity Enhancement Program Leader for agronomy and post-harvest at AfricaRice. He has characterized germplasms of both Asian rice (Oryza sativa) and African rice (O. glaberrima) for morpho-physiological traits, generated target plant types to assist breeders and evaluated effects of cultivation and post-harvest practices on the morpho-physiological traits. By critical review and meta-analysis of published data, he generated a strategy for the use of African rice. He acted as an interim Genetic Diversity and Improvement Program Leader for pre-breeding and breeding in 2010 and 2015-2017. He has produced more than 100 publications in journal articles and book chapters. He earned a PhD in crop science at The University of Tokyo, Japan in 1991. Before joining AfricaRice, he was a research fellow funded by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science at The University of Tokyo.
Aminou Arouna is an agricultural and resources Economist. He hold a PhD in agricultural and resources economics from University of Hohenheim in Germany. He is the Program Leader for Policy, Innovation Systems and Impact Assessment Program, one the four research programs at AfricaRice. Aminou has more than 20 years experience in socio-economic research related to policy analysis, impact assessment and value chain. He has more than 10 years of leadership using human-centered approach after having certificate of Leadership by the Oxford High Performance Leadership Programme, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford in November 2014. Aminou specializes in resources and environmental economics and impact assessment of technological and institutional innovations. He has strong experience of quantitative impact assessment using both experimental and observational methods. His works include an experimental approach to farmer valuation of African rice genetic resources. He has published on the impact of site-specific and personalized agricultural recommendations and institutional innovations (contact farming schemes) on livelihood using randomized control trial approach, gender learning and adoption in agriculture, rice value chain upgrading in West Africa and impact of rice policy. He published more than 150 papers in different journals including American Journal of Agricultural Economic, Agricultural Economics, Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, and Journal of Development Economics. Aminou has received international awards including the 2022 Agricultural & Applied Economics Associations Quality of Research Discovery Award and 2021 Best Publication Award.
