In West Africa two rice species (Oryza glaberrima Steud. and Oryza sativa L.) co-exist. AFLP analysis was used to assess genetic diversity in West Africa (including the countries The Gambia, Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Togo) using 315 rice samples morphologically classified prior to analysis. In this article we show that West African farmers have generated rices of interspecific background - independently from biotechnology - through in-field hybridization and spontaneous backcrossing. Our results strongly suggest that interspecific hybridization in West Africa farmers’ fields is a recurrent and continuing process, resulting in different groups of genetic diversity in different rice growing areas stimulated by (cultural) differences in selection. Our results show that African farmers are active agents in plant improvement and that this agency can be taken as a starting point for scientific technology development.
