Africa sharpens food security focus with US$9.4M grant for climate-resilient rice

The Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) has received a US$9.44 million grant from the African Development Fund (ADF) to strengthen the climate resilience of rice value chains across West Africa, a region increasingly affected by climate change due to erratic rainfall and extreme weather events.

This comes amid the ongoing push on R&D efforts worldwide to bolster climate-resilient crop development, as countries grapple with climate change-induced crop quality and yield challenges.

AfricaRice is a pan-African rice research, development, and capacity building center based in Côte d’Ivoire. It helps reduce poverty, improve food security, and boost livelihoods by enhancing rice productivity and profitability, while ensuring the sustainability of natural resources.

The initiative, part of the Regional Resilient Rice Value Chains Development Project in West Africa (REWARD), will promote climate-smart agricultural methods and farmer support to ensure food and nutrition security while improving livelihoods.

“The strategy for this project is to reduce the vulnerability and strengthen the resilience of rice value chains, from production to processing and marketing, while lowering greenhouse gas emissions through the dissemination and adoption of climate-smart practices and technologies,” says Marwan Ladki, senior irrigation engineer at the African Development Bank (AfDB), who is responsible for the project.

Scaling climate-smart practices

The project is funded through ADF’s Climate Action Window, and will support rice producers and processors in 13 countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.

The project will provide climate-resilient rice seeds to 11,000 farmers, and train 12,600 farmers and processors to advance climate-smart agriculture practices, says the AfDB. It will also support 65 small and medium-sized enterprises with equipment, improve business networks, and provide climate services through digital platforms and radio, to reach two million beneficiaries.

Four automatic weather stations per country will also be deployed for enhanced spatial coverage and climate monitoring. The program is projected to create 47,000 employment opportunities, including 8,000 permanent and 39,000 seasonal jobs.