Project led by TERRA researcher seeks to sustainably improve rice production, ecosystems and livelihoods in Guinea-Bissau

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Project led by TERRA researcher seeks to sustainably improve rice production, ecosystems and livelihoods in Guinea-Bissau

Marina Padrão Temudo, a researcher in the ForProtect group at the Center for Forestry Studies (CEF) and the TERRA Associated Laboratory (TERRA), is working on the project “Malmon-DeSIRA | Mangroves, mangrove rice and mangrove people – sustainably improving rice production, ecosystems and livelihoods”.

This European Union-funded project seeks to increase the productivity and stabilize the inter-annual mangrove swamp rice production in Guinea-Bissau, as well as to contribute to a better understanding of the drivers and complex dynamics of mangroves’ ecosystem changes.

In a video recently released on the project’s official YouTube channel, local farmers share different perspectives for Mangrove Swamp Rice in a changing world. The farmers highlight the importance of agriculture for development, without forgetting the impact of climate change and economic policies.

The farming-fishing-livestock system is unique to West Africa and depends on the ability to mobilize specialist knowledge (construction and maintenance of dykes and dams, water management, control of soil fertility and toxicity and variety selection) and massive work at certain periods of the rice production cycle.

In this video made by researchers Merlin Leunda Martiarena and Marina Padrão Temudo (the project’s principal investigator), the aim was to show what is happening

More information about the project on the official website here.