Lightbourne, Muriel --- "NERICA, Food Security and Intellectual Property: From the Green to the Gene Revolution" [2007] ELECD 286; in Westkamp, Guido (ed), "Emerging Issues in Intellectual Property" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Emerging Issues in Intellectual Property

Editor(s): Westkamp, Guido

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845427757

Section: Chapter 17

Section Title: NERICA, Food Security and Intellectual Property: From the Green to the Gene Revolution

Author(s): Lightbourne, Muriel

Number of pages: 22

Extract:

17. NERICA, food security and
intellectual property: From the Green
to the Gene Revolution
Muriel Lightbourne
The new varieties of rice for Africa (known under the acronym `NERICA')
developed at the West Africa Rice Development Agency are raising big hopes
in terms of food security, to the extent of being qualified as tools in a Green
Revolution in Africa. NERICAs refers to seven different varieties, with differ-
ent characteristics to suit different tastes, and mostly designed for upland (i.e.
dry) breeding systems. However, some on-going trials aim at developing
NERICAs varieties for wet conditions. Located in war-torn Côte d'Ivoire, the
West African Rice Development Agency (WARDA) could not fully complete
the field trials or communicate the results of such trials. Thus, cultivation stan-
dards, such as required quantities of fertilizers, are not known. Moreover, field
trials conducted with one of these varieties, namely NERICA 4, showed stabil-
ity problems. Thus, according to prominent members of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) involved in the development of these varieties, two crit-
icisms can be made of the latter: first, available data are not sufficient to guar-
antee the success of their wide use; secondly, rice represents only 20 per cent
of the African diet, the main staple food in Africa being maize. However,
NERICAs has allowed a country such as Guinea for instance to save $13
million on its rice imports bill.1
As the phrase `new Green Revolution' is widely used in respect to
NERICAs, it may ...