To combine traits of economic importance from both the African rice (Oryza glaberrima ) and Asian rice (Oryza sativa ), interspecific breeding programs were initiated by the AfricaRice and NARS breeders in the early 1990s. Using African rice as donor parents and the Asian rice as recurrent parents, the rice breeders developed various improved interspecific rice genotypes of which some have been released as New Rice for Africa (NERICAs) varieties. The interspecific genotypes and varieties account for 3.5% of the AfricaRice genebank collection.

Based on our germplasm distribution database since 1995, we found out that nearly 40% of the interspecific genotypes conserved at our genebank were distributed to total of 101 institutions across 46 countries. The frequency of distribution per accession varied from 1 to 34, with an overall average of 19 shipments within the 25 years. The accessions were distributed to NARS (51.9% of the samples), CGIAR centers (37.5%), Universities (10.2%), non-government organizations (0.4%), and other institutions (0.1%), Here, we selected the top 26 interspecific accessions that were distributed to users from 52 to 345 times, with an overall average of 99 distributions within the 25 years.