The demand for good quality parboiled rice is high in parts of Africa, from east to west, north to south. As at 2015, rice consumption in countries was estimated to be approximately 26 million (MT) of which 13 million MT (about one-third of what is traded on the world market) was imported to the continent.

Rice consumption in Africa is projected to reach 34.9 million tons by 2025.  The African Development Bank estimates that the rice sector has the potential to become an engine for economic growth across the continent.

Thus, as the demand for rice increases as result of population growth, increased per capita consumption, and a shifting preference towards ‘premium’ rice linked to increased urbanisation, Africa will need to produce approximately 13 million additional tons of premium rice per year.

Increasing rice production to meet this need is expected to improve the livelihood of at least 3 million producers and lead to economic gains of about US$5.5 billion per year among African countries. To achieve this, Africa needs to develop technologies and infrastructures to support widespread production, processing and commercial adoption of high-yielding climate-resilient rice varieties.

Until now, domestic rice is processed in Africa through the traditional parboiling process. This is carried out mainly by rural women – laborious, time-consuming and unsafe, producing low quality rice with broken and burnt grains and bad smell.

It also requires lots of firewood, causing deforestation. Another major challenge is the pollution that comes with disposing the rice husks that accumulate after threshing.

A GEM for rice parboilers

To address these challenges, the rice compact of Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) is deploying an innovative and environmentally friendly parboiling system -- called GEM (Grain quality enhancer, Energy-efficient and durable Material).

Sponsored by the African Development Bank as part of its Feed Africa Initiative, TAAT’s main objective is to improve the business of agriculture across Africa by raising agricultural productivity, mitigating risks and promoting diversification and processing in 18 agricultural value chains within eight priority intervention areas.

The programme increases agricultural productivity through the deployment of proven and high-performance agricultural technologies at scale along selected nine commodity compacts which include rice.

Led by the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice), the TAAT Rice Compact (TRC) seeks to achieve rapid intensification of rice production by raising farm-level productivity and improving the efficiency of processing and increasing market opportunity through innovative partnerships and proven technologies.

One of such is the GEM technology. Compared with the traditional technology, GEM produces rice of high physical and eating quality that fetches higher price on the local market. It was designed by AfricaRice and fabricated through partnerships with the private sector. The system is provided with pulleys that reduces drudgery.           

The improved system protects the women processors from heat and smoke exposure.  It further enables them to process large quantities of paddy rice in a relatively short time. It also includes an eco-friendly stove with a solar-powered fan that runs on rice husk -- a free and abundant fuel in rice-producing areas.

A profitable technology

The use of the GEM technology reduces paddy steaming time from 60 to 20 min, post-harvest losses from 6% to <0.5% and firewood consumption by 41-100%.

The substitution of firewood fuel by the rice husk results in US$30 savings per ton of parboiled rice. Milled parboiled rice has a higher content of B-Vitamins, minerals and demonstrates slower digestive and lower glycemic properties compared to white milled rice. Biochar produced from the burnt rice husk is used to improve soil fertility.

With the installation of the GEM system, Bouake Innovation Platform (IP) in Côte d’Ivoire is now supplying 4.4 tons of milled parboiled rice per month to the market. In collaboration with PAFER (NGO) and an equipment fabricator (TCMS) in Benin, six mini GEM rice parboilers costing CFA 19.5 million (about US$35,454) were installed in communities in Glazoué and Malanville rice hubs in Benin.

From April 2018 to June 2020, 2,255 tons of paddy were processed into 1,600 tons of milled rice. This system completely substituted firewood with rice husk leading to about US$38,300 savings across the IP sites.

Using the rice husk-fueled GEM rice parboiling system by the IP in Bukan-Sidi Lafia, Nasarawa state in north-central Nigeria for example, over 65 million Naira (US$181,800) was generated within one year (2019) from selling 218.15 tonnes of quality domestic parboiled rice.

A total of 68,300 parboiled rice value chain actors (paddy suppliers, service providers, rice marketers and rice consumers) have so far benefited from the GEM rice parboiling system in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger and Nigeria.

“Before the installation of the rice husk stove in our centre, we were spending a lot of money on firewood. But today, we can save that money. It increases our gains and saves the environment. It has really changed my life,” Juliet Ogbonikan a rice processor in Glazoué, Benin Republic said.

The IP in Nigeria confirmed that their production output for parboiling hit 4.4 t/day upon adoption of the GEM technology. A significant increase from the previous parboiling rate of 1.4 t/day.

“Our processing center now serves as a market hub and my paddy is no longer sold to middlemen since the IP is directly linked to market. Now, the IP members process their paddy before selling, using the IP-fixed price, which is 7-10% above the open market price; thus, maximizing profit by adding value to the paddy harvested,” Joshua Jonathan added.

According to Dr. Ernest Asiedu, the TAAT Rice Compact Leader, the significant improvement recorded with the introduction of the GEM technology aligns essentially with the compact’s vision of achieving rapid intensification of rice production through raising farm-level productivity, improving the efficiency of processing and increasing market opportunities across 20 African countries.

“The compact will continue on this pathway of expanding access of smallholder farmers, the majority being women, to high-yielding agricultural technologies and improving rice production as a means of assuring food security,” Dr. Asiedu added.

NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) Zinath Deen, a fish farmer from Vihiga County in Western Kenya.

She has been practicing fish farming since 2012 in her farm called Tigoi Fish Farm. What began as a hobby for her later transformed into full-fledged business.

Over the years, Zinath has been struggling to produce fingerlings due to inadequate information and technology. She however experienced a turnaround upon her participation in a training on production of tilapia fingerlings. Organized by the Aquacultural Association of Kenya in collaboration with the Aquaculture Compact (TAC) of Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), Zinath’s eyes practically opened to a world of opportunities through best practices in fish farming.

 “I realized that I was doing the production of fingerlings the wrong way and resolved to do things the right way henceforth,” Zinath said.

Sponsored by the African Development Bank as part of its Feed Africa Initiative, TAAT’s main objective is to improve the business of agriculture across Africa by raising agricultural productivity, mitigating risks and promoting diversification and processing in 18 agricultural value chains within eight priority intervention areas.

The programme increases agricultural productivity through the deployment of proven and high-performance agricultural technologies at scale along selected nine commodity compacts which include aquaculture.

The bank, through the TAAT Aquaculture Compact (TAC) disseminates aquaculture technologies at that increase value chain actors’ productivity, increase fish protein consumption and enhance sustainability across the value chain.

Led by the WorldFish Centre, TAC responds to emerging opportunities for partnerships, influence and impact in fisheries and aquaculture across Africa.

Through its collaboration with the Kenyan Aquacultural Association, the compact was able to train fish farmers and breeders including Zinath on several technologies which included production of fingerlings in hapas, smoking of catfish in modern smoking kiln, value addition and production of affordable fish feed using locally available ingredients. Women and youth were the prime targets of the training with a view to creating jobs while assuring food security.

Following the training in 2019, Zinath and her fellow fish farmers, by the fourth quarter of 2020, were able to increase their production tenfold. Their annual production increased from 120,000 to 360,000 mono sex tilapia. Annual income also increased from $16,649 to $49,440.

With increased income through her fish farm production, Zinath was able to increase her number of employees from 2 to 5. She was also able to transfer the technology to 38 farmers who participated in the training sessions she organised in her farm.

Zinath’s experience as well as that of her colleagues, further accentuates the fact that with right technology, fish farmers are able to graduate from subsistence to commercial producers of fish hence improving their livelihoods through increased income.

The TAC team will therefore continue on this trajectory of disseminating technology to more farmers so as to integrate it with the other methods of fingerling production.

PAMACC News - Unlocking the Potential of Groundwater for the Poor (UPGro), has been a seven-year international research programme (2013-2020), funded by the Department for International Development, Natural Environment Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council.

Nearly 200 of the world’s best researchers from more than 50 organisations across Africa and Europe have been focused on improving the evidence base around groundwater availability and management in Sub Saharan Africa.

The goal has been to ensure that the hidden wealth of Africa’s aquifers benefit all citizens and the poorest in particular UPGro projects are interdisciplinary, linking the social and natural sciences to address this challenge.

Water resources are critical to economic growth and social development. Groundwater provides most of the domestic water supply in parts of rural Africa and supports poverty reduction through access to clean drinking water and irrigation. In 2015, only 23 of the 52 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) met the UN Millennium Development Goals target for drinking-water provision and Target 6.1 of the Sustainable Development Goals is to achieve universal access to safe, affordable water by 2030. Groundwater has the potential to provide an improved source of drinking water for those in SSA who are currently without access.

Yet water is not only an important resource for the poor living in rural SSA, but is also central to most industries and a vital commodity for tourism. Industry is an important source of income for several African countries and a lack of water supply could constrain opportunities for development, including better services and improvements to poorer people’s livelihoods. Groundwater sources are often resistant to drought, acting as a natural buffer against rainfall variability. However, groundwater is already intensively used in certain parts of Africa and in some cases it is being extracted faster than it can be replenished. As the population grows, water security in SSA will become increasingly important and demands on groundwater resources are likely to surge. To ensure sustainability, greater understanding of groundwater resources and how to manage their use effectively will be required.

A recent study on groundwater in Africa has shown that there is possibly 20 times more water available as groundwater compared with that available in lakes and rivers. Droughts are currently a major cause of humanitarian disaster in SSA, often leading to mass population movements and considerable health, social and economic stress on many developing nations. These humanitarian disasters are likely to grow in scale as populations increase and climate and land-use change accelerate. With these increasing pressures on water resources, the potential pressure on groundwater as the solution to the water security challenge in SSA is high.