Durable Rice Blast Resistance for Sub-Saharan Africa

在消费者偏好和快速城市化的推动下，撒哈拉以南非洲地区大米消费量的增长速度超过了任何其他作物品种。稻米生产主要依靠小农，无法满足日益增长的稻米需求。已经开发出适合当地的高产水稻品种，但它们对一种叫做稻瘟病的毁灭性疾病非常敏感。稻瘟病每年摧毁的水稻足以养活全世界6000万人，非洲因稻瘟病造成的作物损失往往超过60%。该项目旨在为撒哈拉以南非洲的小农开发和部署耐久的抗稻瘟病水稻品种。该项目建立在过去四年中通过BBSRC可持续作物生产促进国际发展（SCPRID）奖与项目合作伙伴之间广泛合作的基础上。在这项先前的工作中，我们已经利用引起稻瘟病的病原体多样性的知识来指导水稻育种计划。我们培育出了新的、适合当地的、具有新的抗病特异性的高产水稻品种，这些品种现在准备在撒哈拉以南非洲进行试验。在这个项目中，我们将在肯尼亚、坦桑尼亚、布隆迪、布基纳法索、科特迪瓦、卢旺达和马达加斯加等7个非洲国家的19个病害热点地点测试新品种的可靠性。我们将测试这些新的水稻品种是否能够在如此多样化的环境和不同的水稻生产系统中抵抗这种疾病，包括旱地、灌溉和下雨的低地农场。我们将利用这些信息登记这些品种，免费发放给农民。我们还将继续制定一个病原体监测规划，该规划是由以前的BBSRC资助建立的，以指导我们在科特迪瓦、肯尼亚和布基纳法索正在进行的水稻育种工作。我们将培育更多的水稻品种，在流行的稻瘟病病原体种群的指导下，我们将纳入不同的抗性特异性。最后，但非常重要的是，我们将开展一系列广泛的农民参与活动，植物疾病诊所，并进一步开发信息资源，以便快速部署和采用该项目产生的新水稻品种。我们将立即向农民提供实用的建议，让他们充分参与正在开发的新品种的测试，并提供一个植物诊所网络，就一系列疾病问题向他们提供建议。总而言之，该项目将促进非洲水稻生产的可持续集约化，为该地区提供极大的粮食安全，并影响撒哈拉以南非洲成千上万小农的经济福祉。

Rice consumption in sub-Saharan Africa is growing faster than for any other crop species, driven by consumer preference and rapid urbanisation. Rice production depends predominantly on smallholder farmers and cannot meet the increasing demand for rice. Locally adapted, high yielding rice cultivars have been developed but are very sensitive to a devastating disease called rice blast. Every year, rice blast disease destroys enough rice to feed 60 million people worldwide and crop losses in Africa to this disease often exceed 60%. This project is designed to develop and deploy durable rice blast resistant rice varieties to smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. The project builds upon extensive collaboration between the project partners over the last four years through a BBSRC Sustainable Crop Production for International Development (SCPRID) award. In this previous work, we have used knowledge of the diversity of the pathogen that causes rice blast disease to guide rice breeding programmes. We have generated new, locally adapted, high yielding rice cultivars with new disease resistance specificities that are now ready to be tested across sub-Saharan Africa. In this project, we will test the reliability of the new cultivars in disease hotspots in 19 sites within 7 African countries- Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Rwanda and Madagascar. We will test if these new rice varieties are able to resist the disease in such diverse settings and different rice production systems, including upland, irrigated and rained lowland farms. We will use this information to register these varieties for free release to farmers. We will also continue to develop a pathogen surveillance programme, established by previous BBSRC funding to guide our ongoing rice breeding work in the Cote d'Ivoire, Kenya and Burkina Faso. We will breed further rice varieties in which we will incorporate different resistance specificities, guided by the prevailing blast pathogen population. Finally, but very importantly, we will undertake an extensive series of farmer engagement activities, plant disease clinics, and further development of information resources to allow rapid deployment and take-up of the new rice varieties generated in this project. We will provide practical advice immediately to farmers, allow them to be fully engaged in testing the new varieties being developed and provide a network of plant clinics to advise them on a range of disease issues. Taken together, the project will allow sustainable intensification of rice production in Africa, providing much great food security to the region and impacting on the economic wellbeing of many thousands of small holder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.