Monty Jones and the development of NERICA

With his gentle smile and calm demeanour, Dr. Monty Jones does not look like the proverbial wild-haired scientist. Going boldly where other respected scientists had given up, Jones succeeded for the first time in producing fertile offspring - Nerica - by crossing the prolific Asian rice with the hardy African species, a feat that had been almost written off as a breeding impossibility.

Because African and Asian rice species do not naturally interbreed, Jones and his team used a technique called embryo-rescue to ensure that crosses between the two varieties survive and mature. The fruit of this effort, Nerica, has several advantages over traditional varieties.

Nerica represents more than 3,000 varieties of improved rice for various African agro-ecological zones, opening up a new world of rice biodiversity. Jones remembers the excitement he felt when he first saw seven of 48 crosses produce a few fertile plants. "Some even had 98 to 100 per cent fertility!" he said.

From then on, he had several 'eureka' moments, as he noticed the desirable characteristics of the two parents that had been transferred to the offspring. Internationally acclaimed rice scientists had doubted that Nerica varieties had more than 300 grains per panicle compared with Asian varieties that have average of 100.

And this did not deter Jones and his team. They continued to break new ground, learning to use another culture - a technique that allows breeders to obtain pure breeding lines without the numerous cycles of inbreeding or 'backcrossing' usually needed - to produce highly fertile lines in about two years, one-third the time required for conventional selection. "There was often an element of luck in our research," Jones says modestly.

Since its large-scale release in the late 1990s, Nerica, its developers and partners continue to receive global accolades, forcing a rethink on Africa's will and capacity to solve its problems.

This year, Time magazine named Jones one of the most influential people in the world. Economist Jeffrey Sachs wrote, "When Africa breaks free from the grip of poverty and famine - as it now looks poised to do - Jones, 56, will have played a pivotal role. His efforts in creating Nerica are legendary. His work has helped inspire other groups to support an African Green Revolution. The payoff will be a healthy, well-nourished continent on the path of economic growth."

Jones was among the first people to appreciate the value of indigenous rice species as a reservoir of genes for resistance to local stresses and to develop and apply new tools to increase the efficiency of the breeding programme in Africa. To develop Nerica, he started by collecting and classifying 1,500 varieties of native African rice in danger of extinction.

Currently the executive secretary of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), Jones developed Nerica during his tenure as a senior scientist at the Africa Rice Centre between 1991 and 2002.

The new rices thrive in the continent's poor soils, defy drought and weeds and increase yields by up to 250 per cent. They mature in only half the time (90 days) of traditional varieties Nerica's protein content is about 25 per cent higher than that of imported rice.

allafrica.com