Farmers laud CRI new rice variety

Rice farmers in Nkawie and its environs have lauded the Crop Research Institute (CRI) –Enapa rice, a new rice variety for its tolerance to the dangerous Rice Yellow Mottle Virus (RYMV).

RYMV infects rice plants through wounds and rice feeding vectors, thus affecting rice pro­duction in rice growing countries.

According to the rice farmers “CRI -Enapa can tolerate the RYMV and give a high yield.”

CRI-Enapa was among three other rice varieties-AGRA-Rice, Amankwatia, and CRI-Dartey, introduced on a demonstration field in Nkawie, in the Ashanti Region, by the Korea-Africa Food and Agricultural Cooperation Ini­tiative (KAFACI) in collaboration with the Crops Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR-CRI).

This came to light during a field day to enlighten farmers and other stakeholders on improved rice varieties and good agronomic practices for high productivity and livelihood improvement.

The field day was well attended by rice farmers, millers, proces­sors, Extension Officers and Seed Scientists, and allowed the farmers to appreciate the improved vari­eties.

“All the varieties”, the farmers said, “were noted to be high yield­ing, good cooking quality and has good taste.”

The project Coordinator, Isaac Osei-Tutu, a seed scientist with the CSIR-CRI, who led the team Friday urged the farmers/partic­ipants to always use high quality seeds of improved varieties for rice production, “which will en­sure high yields and enhance their livelihood.”

Elaborating on the good attri­butes of the improved varieties, Mr Osei-Tutu, also emphasised that the CRI-Enapa “has toler­ance to the dangerous RYMV and drought.”

The Coordinator indicated that the project had conducted similar demonstration fields and introduced the improved varieties to farmers in other communities such as Ntensere and Aframso.

Realising that rice importation had been a major challenge for the country, a result of low do­mestic rice production creating a supply deficit, he encouraged rice farmers in Ghana to use improved varieties and quality seeds for increased rice production.

The Agriculture Extension Officer of the area, Henry Aluah Bapore, also urged the farmers to adopt the improved varieties and always use the good agricultural practices learnt from the demon­stration field.

Mrs Esther Nana Animah, Seed Scientist at the CSIR-CRI, advised farmers to always acquire seeds from certified seed source to avoid low quality seeds which usu­ally resulted in poor germination.

Chairman of the Farm­ers group, Awuni Mahmudu, expressed appreciation to the KAFACI project and CSIR-CRI for the establishment of demon­stration field and the lesson learnt during the period.

He encouraged members to practice all the good lessons learnt