ABIDJAN, Oct 9 (AFP) - An ambitious programme to improve food security on
the world's hungriest continent, Africa, through a new high-yield hybrid
rice is severely threatened by the crisis in Ivory Coast, a top scientist
said Wednesday.
   Kanayo Nwanze, director general of the West Africa Rice Development
Association (WARDA), told AFP that years of work could be lost if a
rebellion launched by rebel soldiers on September 19 dragged on.
   The chief of WARDA, whose research centre is located in M'be, near the
central Ivory Coast city of Bouake, which has been under the control of
rebels since their uprising nearly three weeks ago, as is M'be itself, said
a project on a new rice strain for Africa was under threat.
   NERICA, an acronym for New Rice for Africa, is a hybrid of Asian and
African rice strains.
   Experts say NERICA's yield can be up to 50 percent higher than standard
strains.
   "If (the conflict) goes till the end of this month it will seriously
jeopardise the NERICA programme," Nwanze said.
   "We had to evacuate the centre at M'be on the 19th very early in the
morning. We could not retrieve hard disks or data or documentation, the
result of years of work."
   He said a valuable germplasm collection of local African rice species
which  had been built up and conserved over many years in WARDA's genebank
was also at risk.
   "They are kept in cold storage rooms. There was a power outage last week
for about three or four hours but thankfully nothing happened.
   "If there is an outage for a longer period, they would be destroyed," he
said.
   Savitri Mahapatra, an Indian scientist working at WARDA, said Wednesday
that the rebels had come to the research facility "and stolen all our
cars", but added: "They haven't started looting yet."
   Nwanze said about 3,000 Asian rice strains that had been planted by the
WARDA research station for rejuvenation and due to be harvested in October
could be "irretrievably lost" if the harvest did not take place on time.
   Another WARDA official said: "It takes many years to build institutional
linkages; the network process can regress by 10 years if the crisis
continues."
   Nwanze, a Nigerian, said WARDA, set up in 1971, had its research centre
in the Liberian capital Monrovia but had to move to M'be and Bouake in
1987 "due to the troubles in Liberia.
   "I hope we don't have to move from Ivory Coast," he said.
   NERICA combines the best attributes of the Asian and African strains.
   In addition to higher yields, the new varieties mature 30 to 50 days
earlier than current varieties.
   Experts say the new rice is substantially richer in protein and is far
more disease- and drought-tolerant than previous varieties. It also resists
some of the most damaging insect pests in west Africa and can withstand
weeds.
   Ivory Coast's rebel soldiers have been holding half the west African
nation, the world's largest cocoa producer, for three weeks.
   On Wednesday the rebels refused a demand by President Laurent Gbagbo
that they lay down their arms as a precondition for peace talks and
announced they would go on the attack.
   The International Cocoa Organisation on Tuesday said it was temporarily
suspending plans to shift its headquarters from London to Abidjan, Ivory
Coast's main city, due to the uprising.

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