Baccalauréat · Série C · Anglais — 2024

Text: Rice Production in West Africa

Rice consumption has steadily increased in Sub-Saharan Africa while domestic rice production hardly meets the demand. In Burkina Faso for example, the national rice self-sufficiency ratio was 30% between 2008 and 2018 according to Africa Rice Center. So the National Rice Development Strategy (NRDS) of the country emphasizes intensification and expansion of irrigated rice production systems to achieve rice self-sufficiency. There is potential for enhancing rice production by increasing rice yield on existing land (known as intensification), improving rainfed lowland rice areas, and expanding areas under irrigation.

Among the five rice cropping systems in West Africa, which are rainfed upland, rainfed lowlands, irrigated lowlands, deepwater and mangrove swamps, the irrigated rice systems hold a promising future for several reasons. The average rice yield in irrigated lowland (3.8 t/ha) is higher than yields in rainfed lowland (2.6 t/ha), and rainfed upland (1.7 t/ha). Because of temperature changes, rainfall variability and expected future climate change impacts in rainfed rice systems, improvements in farmers' adaptive capacity due to the expansion of irrigation facilities may reduce rice production losses.

Although irrigated rice holds tremendous potential in fulfilling many West African countries' agendas of becoming rice self-sufficient, geospatial analysis to assess potentially irrigable land is often not explored. It is therefore relevant to quantify “where” and “how much” land is potentially suitable for irrigated rice cultivation under water-saving technologies.

Many irrigation schemes are inefficient and irrigation rice productivity is low in Burkina Faso. To improve water-use efficiency through the reduction of water used for irrigation, many technologies have been introduced including Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD). Alternate wetting and drying is a water-saving technology developed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and is based on the fact that continuous flooding is not required for rice fields to achieve high yields.

Adapted from: The Potential for expansion of irrigated rice under alternate wetting and drying in Burkina Faso, by Kombari Akpoti, Elliott R. Dossou-Yovo, Sander T. Zwart and Paul Kiepe, 2021, p. 2.

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