Africa has to import more than 45 percent of its rice needs for consumption at a cost of more than 1 billion U.S. dollars a year, a high-ranking Nigerian official said here on Thursday.

At the opening of the extraordinary session of the Council of Africa Rice Center (WARDA) in the Nigerian capital Abuja, secretary to the Nigerian federal government Ufot Ekaette said rice production in the sub-region fell short of consumption while the import bill remained high.

As the representative of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to attend the session, Ekaette challenged the WARDA to make rice importation a thing of the past in Africa through research, technology dissemination and attainment of long term productivity. He said the WARDA should try and maintain its outstanding achievement on the production of New Rice for Africa (NERICA).

"Since the creation of the technology," he said, "it has carved a special niche for itself among upland rice farmers in sub- Saharan Africa."

He therefore challenged African scientists to strive and play more roles in solving what he described a purely African problem in agriculture as exemplified by NERICA a success story.

According to outgoing Director General of WARDA Kanayo Nwanze, NERICA technology was from Africa to Africa.

"NERICA has perfectly adapted to the harsh growing environment and low-input conditions of upland rice ecology in sub-Saharan Africa where small holder farmers lack the means to irrigate and apply chemical fertilizer," he said.

Nwanze added that NERICA unique technology had a huge economic potential in Africa for the feeding of subsistence farmers household, generate surplus harvest, reduce imports and save foreign exchange.

Source: Xinhua