Since March this year, more than 300 rice farmers in Tanzania's Zanzibar have breathed a collective sigh of relief following the introduction of a Chinese water-saving and drought-resistant rice variety.
ZANZIBAR, Tanzania, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- Since March this year, more than 300 rice farmers in Tanzania's Zanzibar have breathed a collective sigh of relief following the introduction of a water-saving and drought-resistant rice variety.
Ali Abdallah Jaku, a 40-year-old rice farmer at Kibonde-Mzungu in Mjini Magharibi region on Unguja Island, was full of hopes in a recent interview with Xinhua when he said that the new rice variety was going to increase his harvests compared to the one he was using currently.
"China brought this water-saving and drought-resistant rice variety early this year for demonstration, but we have started seeing bumper harvests. Indeed, this variety is a game changer in rice cultivation," said Jaku, a father of three children.
Salum Faki Hamad, a researcher with the Zanzibar Agricultural Research Institute under the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, Natural Resources, and Livestock, said about 300 farmers at Kibonde-Mzungu village are now using the Chinese water-saving and drought-resistant rice variety.
"The number of farmers using the new variety is expected to rise to 6,000 in the next farming season after we have distributed seeds of the new variety to them," said Hamad.
The researcher told Xinhua that the WDR-73 rice variety which uses a minimum amount of water and tolerates drought was introduced in Zanzibar in March 2024 by the Shanghai Agrobiological Gene Center.
Hamad said this variety matured in a short time and it was resistant to flooding.
"We intend to distribute this variety to all parts of Zanzibar, including Unguja and Pemba Island, as it thrives in highlands where farmers do not use irrigation," said the researcher.
Hamad also said he hoped that the Chinese-introduced variety could play a huge role in the development of local varieties by breeding with the new genetic resource.
Ali Khamis Juma, the principal secretary in Zanzibar's Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, Natural Resources, and Livestock, said following the introduction of this rice variety, Zanzibar and China could explore cooperation on research of other food crops to make the Zanzibar archipelago food self-sufficient.
Liu Zaochang, a researcher from the Shanghai Agrobiological Gene Center, said the center has started scientific research cooperation with Tanzania on water-saving and drought-resistant rice since March.
"One of its main features is that its growth period is 10 to 20 days earlier than the local ones. The second is that our seed setting rate of this variety is also very high, the seed setting rate is above 90 percent, and its potential role is very high," said Liu. "From the perspective of the cooperation between China and Tanzania in agriculture, especially in rice cultivation, I think it is very promising."
Liu said water-saving and drought-resistant rice that reduces water consumption without sacrificing yields was beginning to attract attention in both plain areas and mountainous and hilly lands. He believed the variety can bring about stable food production, energy saving and carbon emission reduction, and environmentally friendly effects.
Luo Lijun, another researcher from Shanghai Agrobiological Gene Center, said that in the past 60 years, important progress has been made in the research of breeding and cultivation techniques aimed at improving rice yields.
Rice production was, however, still facing severe challenges in terms of resources and the environment, he added. ■
