Chapter 2: Farmers' perception of rice varieties, major constraints on production and Rice
2.2 Introduction
Rice constitutes the third most important food crop in Niger after pearl millet and sorghum, but represents the most rapidly increasing crop in term of demand and consumption. However, the national rice production does not match the demand, causing rice imports to grow from 40,000 tons in 1995 to 210,000 tons in 2005, at a cost of 71.4 million USD, for a country where nearly 60% of the population lives below the poverty line (Sido, 2010; WFP, 2010). Rice is produced mainly in the region of Tillabéry covering 91,199 km2 over a total of 1,267,000 km2. It is the home to 16.44% of the 15.2 million people of Niger (Faivre-Dupaigre et al., 2006; INS, 2010).
The region of Tillabéry is bordered to the north by Mali, the north-west by the region of Tahoua, the east by the region of Dosso, the west by Burkina Faso and the south by Benin. With 100,000 ha of arable, irrigable lands, the region of Tillabéry contains nearly half of the irrigable land of Niger; in addition to 420km of the 550km that the Niger River runs through the country. In
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addition to this, the river has seven major tributaries in the region, and there are a number of marshes in the same area (Seybou and Kodako, 2004).
In the rice production area of Tillabéry can be found all three of the main agrosystems of rice in the country. Firstly, the region contains 29 irrigated rice schemes that cover 7,432 ha (85.3% of the national irrigated schemes) with double cropping each year. The average yield in this agrosystem is 3.5 to 4.5 tons per hectare (Seybou and Kodako, 2004; Alfari et al., 2006). This intensive system, under the control of local farmer unions, and supervised by the "Office National des Aménagements Hydro-Agricoles" (ONAHA), currently produces 30,000 to 35,000 tons per year. Additionally, private irrigated system with individual water pumps are found in the area.
The irrigated ecosystems are planted with improved Oryza sativa varieties only. Secondly, traditional rice growing in the Tillabéry region accounts for about 62.13% of lowland rice production, including lowland deepwater and floating agrosystems along the Niger River. Yields are low, between 0.9 and 1.5 tons per hectare with a total yearly production around 55,631 tons (Alfari et al., 2006). The rainfed lowland agrosystems are sown with both improved and traditional O. sativa varieties, while the deepwater and floating agrosystems are sown with O. glaberrima, and a few O. sativa varieties.
People in the south-eastern region of Tillabéry started growing rice relatively recently; whereas rice has been the staple food for people in its western region for centuries. Indeed, The Wogo and Songhai (Gaoboro) people are traditionally rice growers. The Niger River splits the area into many islands, where floating basins were used for rice cropping (Bonkoula and Miezan, 1982).
During the 1980's, the Government of Niger invested in the development of large irrigated areas for rice cropping intensification. These irrigated areas were cropped with high yielding Asian rice cultivars IR1529 and BG90-2. This was followed by the emergence of several diseases (Rechans, 1983; Reckhans and Adamou, 1986) of which the RYMV was, first reported in the country in 1984 (Reckhaus and Adamou, 1986). The Asian rice cultivars have been identified as the causes of the first RYMV outbreaks. The susceptibility of those cultivars resulted in yield losses reaching 58-68% (Reckhaus and Adamou, 1989; WARDA, 2001). Presently the virus has been reported on more than 12,000 ha of rice along the Niger (West) and the Komadougou (East) Rivers, more than 1000 km distant from the first sites where RYMV was reported (Basso et al., 2010).
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During a rice germplasm collection conducted as part of this thesis in Niger in 2008, major changes in rice cultivation practices were observed in the homeland of the Wogo people in the region of Tillabéry. Firstly, more than 80% of the O. glaberrima landraces identified by Bonkoula and Miezan (1982) had disappeared in the canton of Sinder. Secondly, the O. sativa variety IR1529-680-3 (which is highly susceptible to RYMV) was still being cultivated on most of the irrigated schemes, in spite of the release of RYMV tolerant rice varieties, WITA8 and WITA9, developed by AfricaRice and released in 1997 by the National Institute of Agricultural Research in Niger (INRAN). A farmer's variety of O. sativa named "Kassimo" or "Waihidjo" was grown on 60% of the irrigated rice fields of the region (personal communication). This variety was said to have been derived from IR1529-680-3 by mass selection made by a farmer of the village of Darbani. Surprisingly, the variety had not been tested, nor disseminated by the INRAN or the ONAHA; prior to its being grown on a large scale. Several questions have risen from this situation: (a) Why were farmers still growing the RYMV susceptible IR1529, despite the availability of RYMV tolerant varieties ?; (b) Why did RYMV tolerant rice varieties, such as WITA 8 and WITA 9, were not adopted by farmers for replacing the RYMV susceptible IR1529- 680-3 ?; (c) Which were the farmers’ preferred rice varieties in the region of Tillabéry and what were the main preferred traits interest for adoption by farmers ?; (d) What were the seed dissemination channels ?
Farmers’ reluctance to adopt new and improved varieties has also been reported in other countries. In Ethiopia, for instance, a study found that in some areas farmers continued to use susceptible varieties even when disease- resistant varieties were made available by scientists (Kiros-Meles and Abang, 2008). The key explanation for this attitude was their interest in other criteria, unfortunately not recognized by researchers. Similarly in Ghana, cassava growers were found to retain disease-susceptible landraces, despite the availability of the disease-resistant, improved varieties. Farmers were not aware of the disease-resistance ability of the improved varieties (Manu-Aduening et al., 2007). Next to disease and pest resistance, crop agronomic traits can also drive farmers' choices. In this way, maize farmers in Nepal refuse to adopt "improved"
varieties without the desired traits of earliness, responsiveness to low fertility soils, grain colour, etc (Witcombe et al., 2003). In some Nepali villages, rice farmers preferred cultivars with white caryopsis for various reasons ranging from culinary practicality to social prestige (Sthapit et al., 1996). Fortunately, rice varieties accepted by farmers in Nepal were successfully developed
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through participatory research at the same time as the above information on farmers' perceptions and preferred traits were identified (Joshi and Witcombe, 2003). Among participatory research methods, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) is a powerful tool to rapidly accumulate information on rural issues, with farmers' involvement. The PRA involves a tight multidisciplinary collaboration between scientists first, and then with farmers. The PRA team aspires to be directly informed by target rural communities using several exploratory techniques including iteration, survey, cross-checking and on-site visits (Bhandari, 2003; Efisue et al., 2008).
To understand the reasons behind the inconsistencies observed in the region of Tillabéry, a PRA on farmers' perception and their management of the main constraints in three rice agrosystems (particularly RYMV), and their preferred traits in rice, as well as their management of local varietal diversity, was conducted. The primary goal of this study was to gather information on farmers’ perception of main constraints to rice production, and the seed sector in the region of Tillabéry. The information could be used to maximize the impact of new varieties, in order to reduce the damaging effects of RYMV on irrigated and lowland rice of the region and thereby improve the livelihoods of the farmers.