ADRAO: Focusing on rice

The Association for the Development of Rice Growing in West Africa (ADRAO) is a bilingual intergovernmental organization with 16 member countries. It has been part of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) since 1986. Its mandate is to help African countries reach self-sufficiency in rice production, a staple of major importance in many areas. Increasing rice production is thus the number one goal of the three regional research stations involved. New varieties of rainfed rice have been developed in Bouake, Cote d'lvoire, of irrigated rice in Saint Louis, Senegal, and of rice adapted to mangrove swamps and other lowlands in Rokupr, Sierra Leone. Efforts are also made to involve extension workers and small farmers in finding ways to overcome the barriers (whether physical, biological or socio-economic) that stand in the way of higher production. The training of researchers, extension workers and technicians, another pressing need of national programmes, is also a major activity of ADRAO. An entire range of short- and long-term programmes is thus made available at its training centre in Fendall, Liberia or through universities or regional centres. To help support such programmes, ADRAO's Communication Division generates a constant flow of scientific and technical information that is available to anyone interested in rice development throughout the world. The documentation centre, which includes 15,000 titles, 660 periodicals and more than 4,000 publications on microfiche, has developed a dissemination service that will make selected documents available to researchers from member countries. A question and answer service is already operating and attention is now being given to the computerization of all of its documentation activities, including the establishment of a bibliographic data base on rice scheduled to be operational this year. For more details, contact: ADRAO P O Box 1019 Monrovia LIBERIAThe Association for the Development of Rice Growing in West Africa (ADRAO) is a bilingual intergovernmental organization with 16 member countries. It has been part of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) since 1986...