THE HYBRID RICE "BREEDING BY DESIGN"

The hybrid rice "breeding by design" aims to develop and expand 2-line hybrid rice technology using Thermosensitive Genic Male Sterile (TGMS) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and ensure that through private companies and public institutions in Africa, this technology reaches farmers and increases their rice yields and income streams. Efforts towards achieving this goal by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) and Hybrid East Africa Ltd (HEAL) in a Public Private Partnership have recorded good progress in the development of high-yielding products and IT tools to successfully mitigate the potential environmental risk of the technology and attracted the participation of private seed companies in Africa. Parental lines and rice hybrids that are well adapted to African conditions have been developed for commercialization by private seed companies for the use of smallholder farmers to increase rice productivity in the region. Already 277 highyielding (up to 10 tons/ha) rice hybrids with desirable grain qualities that are suitable for irrigated and rainfed rice ecologies have been developed. Out of these rice hybrids, 8 have been commercially released and registered in Kenya. Three of these have been adopted for commercialization by three private seed companies (SeedCo, Afritec, and FreshCo) with the rights for seed production and commercialization of the hybrids. AATF and partners have initiated market priming for hybrid rice commercialization using farmer-managed demos as an effective strategy in driving seeing-is-believing approach to increasing adoption by farmers. The catalytic effort to drive the market demand for hybrid varieties and incentivize more private seed companies to take up the technology is being planned. Towards this, the Alliance for Hybrid Rice in Africa (AHyRA) was created as a platform leveraging on the publicprivate partnership strength of AATF for the licensing, promotion, and deployment of hybrid rice across Africa and it involves all value chain actors. The Alliance and the good yield obtained by farmers growing hybrid rice are already creating an increased demand for hybrid rice seeds by farmers.