Malgasy farmers eat rice three times a day: at breakfast cooked in porridge with wild herbs; at lunch with chilli peppers and salt; and at dinner with chicken, fried eggs, black-eyed peas, lentils, or crushed cassava leaves stewed in palm oil. With their meal they drink ranon 'apango: water boiled with the burned crust of rice in the cooking pot. Rice provides up to 70% of their daily calorie need; it is their mainstay, primary crop, and is also weighted with deep religious and ritual meanings.
In Madagascar, all varieties of locally grown rice fetch the same price at market, but there is one variety, a dusty red grain, that sells out before the others.
Called vary mena in the local dialect, this red rice is considered Madagascar’s indigenous variety. Vary mena probably comes from Madagascar’s native rice varieties: Indonesian settlers who colonized Madagascar around 1000 most likely brought white japonica varieties with them, which then mixed with the wild strains of African red rice present on the island. The result is a half-African, half-Asian variety with a rich hazel flavor. According to local folklore, the best vary mena is always reserved for the elderly, the children and the infirm, as it is thought to be more nutritious than white rice. Madagascar's 'rice bowl' produces the vast majority of the country's rice; a plateau across the south-eastern provinces, which is more and more a zone of conflict between small scale farmers and environmentalists. As Madagascar is one of the centers of the world's biological biodiversity (90 percent of the species found on the island are endemic), international conservation groups are working to reduce the impact of agriculture on the island's rich wildlife. The Analamazotra-Andasibe National Park, in the northern part of Madagascar’s ‘rice bowl’, lies in the southernmost tip of the longest corridor of primary forest still unspoiled in Madagascar, which links the Analamazotra-Andasibe, Mantadia, and Zahamena nature reserves. The farms in the Presidium project are on the edge of the Analamazotra-Andasibe reserve in the eastern part of Madagascar, part of the ‘buffer zone’ of sustainable agriculture in which various NGOs are working to preserve one of Madagascar’s last remaining forest corridors.

The Presidium
Because of its wild heritage, Andasibe Red Rice, or vary mena, yields less than hybrid white varieties. It does not fetch a higher price at the local markets, and what does arrive at market in the cities is poorly processed. However, vary mena has been shown to have the potential for higher yields and using new agricultural techniques with this ancient variety may give new promise to commercial cultivation.
The Andasibe Red Rice Presidium combines an innovative agricultural approach (the SRI Intensive Rice Cultivation) with the promotion of five indigenous red rice varieties. This technique gives high yields with minimum impact on the environment and, most importantly, it is an economically viable alternative to slash-and-burn cultivation.
The project is run in collaboration with the Koloharena Kintan'ny Rindran'Ala e Hanitriniala Farmers’ Federation, which represents more than 1000 farmers in the municipalities of Ambatovy Marovoay - Moramanga, Beforona and Andasibe. The presidium has invested in rice hulling and cleaning equipment, packaging, and labeling for the Kolo Harena association to enable them to have a transportable and durable product capable of competing with imported varieties on the local market.

Production area
Ambatovy Marovoay – Moramanga, Beforona and Andasibe, Tamatave province

Technical Partner
Risi & Co-Gli Aironi (Italy)