In Madagascar, rice accounts for about 70% of daily calorie requirements and fulfills important religious and ritual functions. Malagasy farmers eat rice three times a day: for breakfast, vary sosoa – boiled rice served with Kitoza (strips of pan-fried dry meat); for lunch, vary amin’anana – rice cooked in a soup of wild herbs; and for dinner, rice served with boiled chicken, fried eggs, lentils or ground cassava leaves. Every meal is accompanied by ranon’apango, a beverage made from the rice cooking water.
Local rice varieties also exist, such as rojo fotsy and vary malady, which are rich in trace elements and also drought-resistant. They are cultivated mostly around the Alaotra Lake on the west coast, north of the capital. Today these varieties and their ecosystems are at risk of extinction. Increasingly they are being substituted with more productive hybrids, and the thick tropical forest that once surrounded Lake Alaotra is now jeopardized by the increased use of the tavy technique, a rudimentary practice used to promote soil fertility by cutting and burning the vegetation to increase the area of arable land.
Back to the archive > In the Amparafaravola municipality, 200 producers who have saved seeds of the local varieties of rice work together in the Koloharena cooperative, whose name means, “let’s protect our environment.” Slow Food joined together with them to create the Presidium in order to safeguard the cultivation of these ancient varieties, promote them on the local market and sensitize local produ- cers to the risks of deforestation. It is still heavity praticed, even on an island that is so unique to its its extraordinary wealth of biodiversity (about 90% of its fauna and flora are endemic).
Production area
Amparafaravola municipality, Toamasina province, Alaotra region
200 producers, joined in the Koloharena cooperative
Presidium
In the Amparafaravola municipality, 200 producers who have saved seeds of the local varieties of rice work together in the Koloharena cooperative, whose name means, “let’s protect our environment.” Slow Food joined together with them to create the Presidium in order to safeguard the cultivation of these ancient varieties, promote them on the local market and sensitize local produ- cers to the risks of deforestation. It is still heavity praticed, even on an island that is so unique to its its extraordinary wealth of biodiversity (about 90% of its fauna and flora are endemic).
Production area
Amparafaravola municipality, Toamasina province, Alaotra regionProducers
200 producers, joined in the Koloharena cooperative
