For the sake of jollof rice we need to talk about how teachers in African schools keep telling their students the botanical name of rice is Oryza Sativa while actually there are 2 species of rice & the one indigenous to Africans is the Oryza glaberrima aka African rice. 
They tell you rice is a foreign food, a fat lie. Rice is as indigenous as yam. The Europeans met rice farms when they 1st came to West Africa. African rice (Oryza glaberrima) has been cultivated for over 3,500 yrs but your teacher only taught you about Asian rice (Oryza sativa).
The African rice is a the SUV of rice. It is rugged and well adapted to hard knock life. African rice grows profusely that it chokes weeds. It is resistant to drought & common rice insects, pest & diseases. It requires low-labour. It is filling & has fine nutty flavour but....
But, African rice has relatively low yields compared to Asian rice. This is because of about 5,000 years of intense effort that has been invested in improving Asian rice. So instead of Africans to work on improving the African rice, they absconded it and went for Asian rice.
The Asian rice was introduced to West Africa in the late 1800s, by late 1900s it had substantially displaced African rice as the major rice consumed in the region. Thanks to imports of fancy rice with fancy names such as Uncle ben's rice & Thailand rice.
By 1990s Africa was net importer of rice which became a bigman food. To improve yield of African rice & encourage local production of rice. The AfDB, Japan, UNDP & African Rice Centre in Abidjan developed the NERICA rice in the 1990s which was released to farmers in 2000s.
NERICA means "New Rice for Africa". It is hybrid rice developed from Asian rice & African rice at the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) to improve the yield of African rice. It however, wasn't a good news for African rice as African rice was relegated again by NERICA.
poor rice.
poor rice.
With NERICA rice there was an increase in yield from 1 tonne/hectare to 2.5 tonnes/hectare & 5 tonnes/hectare with fertilizer. Dr Monty Jones from Sierra Leone was awarded the World Food Prize in 2004 for developing the NERICA, becoming the 1st African ever to win this award.
Cultivation of African rice has been abandoned for the cultivation of high-yield Asian & NERICA. Now, Africa rice is an "Orphan crop" & one of the "Lost Crops of Africa". It is less than 20% of rice grown in West Africa. Even the Nigerian Ofada rice isn't indigenous to Africa.
Africans chose wheat, corn & Asia rice of foreign origin & abandoned their ancestral cereals: African rice, sorghum, Acha & other milliets. Today young Africans know more of the foreign cereals & barely a thing about African cereals.
Lost Crops of Africa
Lost Crops of Africa
