SUCCESS: Drs Otim-Nape (left) and Kisamba Mugerwa inspecting a NERICA rice field
By Timothy Muwonge and Proscovia Nansubuga
THE upland rice varieties, especially NARIC 1, 2 and NERICA are doing very well in the six pilot districts which participated in their evaluation and selection.
The districts are Bushenyi, Pallisa, Lira, Apac, Bugiri, and Kamwenge. “NERICA has the best qualities the farmers want. It has a good aroma and cakes well. It has become very popular countrywide especially among commercial farmers,” Katamba Lwasa a rice trader in Kikuubo said.
he said they rarely import rice these days because the local varieties have a good market. A kilogramme goes for between sh800 and sh900 wholesale and sh1000 retail.
According to Dr. Otim- Nape, acting Director General of the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO), the cereals programme of Namulonge Agricultural and Animal Research Institute (NAARI) through a participatory approach, was able to identify these varieties which were evaluated and released in 2002. They are now being popularised to solve the food security and income problems throughout the country.
“The varieties meet the farmers’ needs and can grow in almost all parts of the country. They are high yielding, early maturing, resistant to most of the rice pests and diseases and above all, they are environmental friendly,” he said. The Vice president, Prof Gilbert Bukenya, in january 2004 launched a poverty eradication campaign urging the people to grow upland rice varieties and agrees with Otim-Nape.
the Katikiro of Buganda, Mulwanyamuli Semwogerere, added his voice to Bukenya’s. He called upon people in Buganda to grow upland rice varieties, as one of the strategies to fight poverty and food insecurity in the region. The farmers in Kamwenge district are all praises for NARO and enthusiastic to tell their success story to who ever cares to listen.
Juma Kaheru one of the farmers in Kyengoma sub-county says, “Most of the farmers in this area have adopted the new upland rice. The varieties are superior to the lowland varieties and even to Abilonyi the first upland variety. Everywhere you go we have grown NARIC 3 and this season we have between 300 and 400 acres of rice in the sub county. We hope to get a lot of money,” he said.
The story is the same in Iganga district. “The new upland rice varieties are palatable, the yields are high, take a shorter time to mature and so, can be grown twice a year.
Besides, it is very safe, clean and very easy to grow compared to that grown in paddies,” said Annex Tebiwa the chairperson of Twisakirara farmers group, now growing NERICA upland rice varieties.
The group works with VECO-Uganda, an NGO operating in eastern Uganda to promote sustainable agriculture, using technologies developed by NARO and other agencies.
Dr George Bigirwa, head of the cereal programme at Namulonge, said that the pilot for rice evaluation and selection started in 2001 and has successfully ended this year.
He was all praise for the Rockefeller Foundation, which was instrumental in the project.
