Our Research

Healthy Crops pursues two complementary strategies to raise yields for smallholder rice farmers in Africa and Asia. On the one hand, we develop rice varieties that are resistant to major diseases such as Bacterial Blight, Rice Blast and Rice Yellow Mottle Virus (RYMV). On the other hand, we improve established elite rice varieties, such as Kamala, to close the gap between the yield that is genetically possible and the yield that farmers actually achieve in the field. Both approaches share the same goal, to make disease resistant and higher yielding rice available to the smallholder producers who need it most.