IAEA and FAO Help Zanzibar Grow More Rice

SUPA BC, developed using this technology and released in Zanzibar to farmers in 2014, has a yield that is double that of the traditional variety and it can be harvested twice a year – which means quadrupled production and income, said Ali Iddi Mjombo, a farmer in Cheju, a village in central Unguja, the larger of Zanziba’s two main islands.

Mjombo is one of 700 farmers using the new variety, which also has a better aroma, so millers pay a 20% premium compared to the traditional varieties, he added. “It has made a real difference for us,” he said. “I’ve bought a new plot of land and built a metal roof over my house from the additional cash.”

The Government is planning for most of the territory’s 70,000 smallholder rice farmers to eventually use SUPA BC and achieve similar results to Mjombo and his neighbours. SUPA BC is planted on 80% of irrigated land used for rice on Zanzibar – though that for the time being is only 6,400 hectares. With support from South Korea, the Zanzibar Government is installing irrigation systems on more than 1,500 acres of land to plant more SUPA BC, Kassim said. “With the support of the IAEA we have eradicated tsetse flies, improved livestock rearing – and are now working on rice.”

There is still a problem though: SUPA BC is susceptible to two major diseases – the Rice Yellow Mottle Virus and rice blast, so work is under way at the Zanzibar Agriculture Research Institute (ZARI) to improve the resistance of SUPA BC.  The IAEA, in partnership with the FAO, through the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, has provided expert and technical services as well as training and fellowship to several researchers, and – through its technical cooperation programme, has provided equipment and consumables to ZARI’s laboratories for the testing of new lines and for marker assisted selection.   

Using this knowledge and equipment, Salum Hamad, the lead researcher, and his colleagues have characterized and inoculated 100 samples of SUPA BC, irradiated at various doses in order to induce genetic change, with the Rice Yellow Mottle Virus. One of the samples was found resistant to the virus. It will now be tested further to validate resistance and proceed with further trials of the variety.

Work on achieving resistance to the rice blast fungal disease is also under way at ZARI, supported by the IAEA. Last month the IAEA sent to ZARI a new batch of irradiated seeds. Soon they will be planted and inoculated with rice blast fungus to select resistant plants, Hamad said. “In a few years, we hope to have a further improved variety resistant to blast.”

More local rice means less dependence on imports, more money and more jobs for Zanzibar – helping it to achieve its targets under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.