A tweet by the FAO Media Center alerted us to a feel-good story about women and rice in Côte d’Ivoire. unfortunately, I couldn’t catch the name of the variety, but the folks at FAO explained it was something called WITA 9. That turns out to be an oldish (1998) Oryza sativa variety that’s been tested quite a bit in West Africa, for example in comparison to NERICAs. With a little help, I looked it up in IRRI’s germplasm management system (see its pedigree at the side) and it turns out that those Ivorian ladies have researchers in three CGIAR Centres (IRRI, CIAT and AfricaRice), germplasm from half a dozen countries and of course the IRRI genebank to thank for their new livelihood option.
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