Sub-Saharan Africa continues to face serious challenges related to poverty and hunger, and agriculture remains central to both income generation and food and nutrition security. However, agricultural productivity is constrained by poor soils and unstable water supplies. In many regions, increased food production has relied on agricultural expansion through deforestation. As a result, forest degradation and increased methane emissions from expanding rice cultivation have intensified climate change impacts, soil erosion, and the loss of watershed functions. In Madagascar, unstable rice production has contributed to continued slash-and-burn agriculture, highlighting the need for integrated approaches that improve the productivity, resilience, and nutritional value of rice, vegetables, and legumes while clarifying the forest functions that support rice-based farming systems.

This project develops cultivation technologies, breeding materials, and extension approaches that support stable and diversified crop production in African rice-growing systems. It also quantifies the forest functions that support rice agriculture and evaluates their contributions to food production, providing practical solutions that balance food security with conservation of production environments at the landscape scale.

• Development and impact assessment of approaches that balance crop production and forest conservation
• Development of climate-resilient crop production technologies through the expansion and utilization of genetic resources
• Promotion of social implementation and large-scale dissemination of developed technologies

Madagascar, Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Tanzania, and CARD member countries

TSUJIMOTO Yasuhiro (Crop, Livestock and Environment Division)