The purpose of the Market Oriented Rice Development project (MOReDeP) is to promote rice
cultivation as a cash crop in Zambia, which would contribute to increasing the domestic rice production
and supporting the government’s policy on the crop diversification. For this purpose, MOReDeP
mainly conducts 1) researching and developing rice cultivation techniques that are flexible and
favorable to various ecologies in Zambia, 2) formulating “Rice Clusters” while conducting extension
activities to spread the use of the techniques across farmers, and 3) enhancing farmers’ knowledge and
business skills to improve their income by selling produced rice.
RICE RESEARCH
Developing cultivation techniques favorable to various ecologies
Higher Productivity is the focus of the activity. The productivity of rice production in Zambia is 1.20 ton/ha (FAO2019), which is quite low, even comparing to other African countries not very actively producing rice[*]. Low productivity is not because the natural environment is not suitable for rice production. The basic cultivation and harvest/post-harvest processing techniques practiced by farmers are the problem. For the improvement of productivity, while supporting the Zambia Agriculture Agriculture Research Institute (ZARI) and developing its rice research capacity, MOReDeP researches to find solutions to the problems and develops a rice production techniques package that is flexible and favorable to the various ecologies in Zambia. The main research themes include cultivation technology, harvest/post harvest, seed production, mechanization and variety/breeding.
[*] The productivity of rice production in Africa region is 2.27 ton/ha. Kennya is 6.84 ton/ha, which is the highest in the Africa region (FAO2019).
In Zambia Agriculture plays a key role of supporting industries by the production of the required raw materials , producing exportable agricultural goods, generating employment particularly in rural areas, as well as providing food stuffs essential for the sustenance of acceptable nutrition standards and levels.
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