Annual Report 2012 - African Agricultural Technology Foundation

40 AATF Annual Report 2012
Nitrogen-Use Efficient, Water-Use Efficient and Salt Tolerant
Rice Project
Ghana and Uganda
prepare to conduct
rice trials as project
generates transgenic
lines for testing
A woman dances in Tubman, Liberia
The go-ahead from the NBCs to install
CFTs in Ghana and Uganda is a significant
milestone for the Project that will see the
prospect of deploying improved rice varieties
that will address the constraints of nitrogen
deficiency, drought and salinity in rice
production to smallholder farmers
realised sooner.
Dr Jacob Mignouna, Project Coordinator,
AATF
Ghana and Uganda, the two initial pilot countries for the Nitrogen-
Use Efficient (NUE), Water-Use Efficient (WUE) and Salt Tolerant (ST)
Rice (NEWEST) Rice Project, are set to conduct the first confined field
trials (CFTs) for the Project in 2013 following significant progress made
by all project partners during 2012. Arcadia Biosciences, the product
development partner generated and characterised 12 transgenic lines in
readiness for the testing. These lines will be shipped to the two countries
for testing in CFTs in 2013. The two countries completed the CFT site
development and sought approval from the national biosafety committees
(NBCs) to conduct CFTs.
Significant progress was achieved in developing transgenic events
carrying the NUE, and the triple gene stacked NUE-WUE-ST traits for
testing in CFTs in Uganda and Ghana. The transformation involved three
pipelines and include: pipeline 1 consisting of six New Rice for Africa
(Nerica)-4 NUE lines which will be tested in the field at the National
Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO), Uganda and at the Crops
Research Institute (CRI), Ghana. Pipeline 2 has 7 NUE lines which are
phenotypically the same as pipeline 1. Seeds of pipeline 2 will be tested
Deploying agricultural technologies for farmers