RHICO a new rice type for confronting food security in the hillsides

In the hillsides, rice is stable in the diet of the poor. Therefore it is important to develop upland rice with cold tolerance to help confront food insecurity in the mid-altitude mountains. A participatory scheme allowing the farmers to select for the characteristics that the identify as important including acid soil, drought and cold tolerance, and for resistance to rice blast disease. A participatory process of evaluation led to the nomination of the varieties Cirad 446 and Cirad 447. They are the first upland varieties in America with earliness, high tolerance to cold, drought and soil acidity, and with resistance to blast. So they are the first varieties of a new type of Rice for Hlllsides with COld tolerance, named RHICO type.