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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Eromo Egbejule in Bouaké

Growing pains: can rice production in Africa keep up with demand?

Women and men stand in a rice field
Salmata Ouattara and her fellow farmers explain about the Smart Valleys concept that has helped them with water control and boosting incomes. Photograph: Eromo Egbejule/The Guardian

Salmata Ouattara remembers 2023 as the turning point for her rice farm.

June is usually the peak of the rainy season in Ivory Coast, but in the preceding years she and other farmers in M’Be on the outskirts of Bouaké, the country’s second biggest city, would wait weeks for rainfall. Then in September, they would watch helplessly as their farmlands were flooded. Some abandoned their farms, frustrated by fluctuating crop yields.

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