Oryza glaberrima Steud. (African rice) accounts for about 17% of the AfricaRice germplasm collection. This species is still actively cultivated in some parts of Africa, including Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and the Togo Hills in Ghana and Togo. In some communities, African rice is grown primarily for ritual purposes and/or traditional ceremonies. Several African rice accessions have resistance/tolerance to major abiotic and biotic stresses, including drought, iron toxicity, weed competitiveness, nematodes, African rice gall midge, and bacterial blight. However, African rice also has multiple weaknesses, including lodging, a limited number of spikelets per panicle, grain shattering, and prolonged seed dormancy. As a result, breeders use this species as trait donor parents to improve the Asian rice (Oryza sativa L.) via interspecific breeding programs.

Based on our germplasm distribution database from 1995 to 2019, we found out that nearly 86% of the Oryza glaberrima collection has been distributed to users on average six-times (ranged between 1 and 133 times during the 25 years). The traditional varieties/landraces were shipped to 97 institutions across 43 countries. Although most shipments were sent to the National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS), CGIAR, and Universities, some accessions were shipped to non-government organizations and the private sector. Here, we selected the top 20 Oryza glaberrima traditional varieties/landraces that were distributed 18-133 times, with an overall average of 34 shipments to users during the 25 years.