Selasa, 26 Februari 2013

Theme leader empowerment discussed in GRiSP meeting

Key members of the Global Rice Science Partnership (GRiSP) are meeting this week (25 February-1 March 2013) at IRRI Headquarters to further define the roles of the theme leaders and empower them towards these.

The GRiSP global theme leaders and focal persons came from AfricaRice, CIAT, Cirad, IRD, JIRCAS, and IRRI.

The group also aims to develop during the meeting a joint understanding of and specific directions on three major cross-cutting themes that are crucial to the success of GRiSP and to the CGIAR reform process:
  • Mainstreaming gender in activities and product development,
  • Partnerships for impact at scale, and 
  • Impact-pathways with clear outcomes, intermediate development outcomes, measurable output and outcome indicators, target indicators/outcomes, and an outline for an operational monitoring and evaluation system.  




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Bangladesh: CSISA stakeholders share experiences in workshop

The Barisal Hub of the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) in Bangladesh organized an experience-sharing workshop held on 25 February for its stakeholders.

The stakeholders, who were participants in the activity were composed of representatives from the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation, and partner NGOs; staff members of partner NGOs working in the Barisal, Patuakhali, Jhalokathi, and Bhola districts; scientists from the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) and the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute; selected farmers; seed dealers; and representatives from various private companies, UN organizations, and projects.

Md. Shahidul Islam, cropping systems agronomist of CSISA-IRRI in the Barisal Hub, presented the keynote paper.

Others who presented papers on prospects and problems in the adoption of high-yielding rice varieties in their respective areas were: Debangshu Kumar Saha (DAE-Barisal District); Md. Lutfar Rahman (DAE-Barguna District); Md. Abdur Razzak (DAE-Jhalokathi District); Niruttom Kumar Sarkar (DAE-Patuakhali District); and Satyen Mondal, head, BRRI R/S, Barisal.

The presenters and some of the participants exchanged accounts of their own experiences through lively discussion.

Also during the activity, a farmer named Md. Jalal Ahmed Akon received a crest from DAE-Barisal for his outstanding contribution to CSISA-IRRI activities and in the dissemination of modern rice technologies among farmers.

Khondokar Sirajul Karim, additional director, DAE-Barisal, encouraged the participants to provide services appropriate to a community, with  emphasis on production of good-quality rice seeds and seeds of high-value crops such as flower, carrot, sunflower, and mungbean.

Guests of the event were Shahid Ullah, additional director for implementation, Field Service Wing, Khamarbari, Dhaka; Khondokar Sirajul Karim, additional director, DAE, Barisal; and M.A. Saleque, coordinator, CSISA-IRRI.

Loretta Hempsall, corporate services manager, CSISA-IRRI, also attended the workshop.




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Agronomist is guest in February researchers' lunch

Thomas George joined young IRRI researchers for lunch as guest on 20 February, where he elaborated on his current consultancy at IRRI, which is a visioning exercise for IRRI's future.

Dr. George also shared his philosophies on the challenges of agronomy extension work and his plan to overcome the reluctance of farmers to take risks and adopt new management practices. The conversation was quite engaging, and even extended to another meeting over coffee several days later.

Participants were Tahir Hussain Awan, Yam Kanta Gaihre, Manuel Marcaida III, Ngo Duc Minh, Annette Tobias, and Elenor de Leon.

The Young Researchers Lunch is a monthly meeting for NRS and AFSTRI scientists who are in the early stages of their career. The purpose is to provide an opportunity for discussions with senior scientists on a range of topics, including career paths.



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Disaster management training held for local residents

A 5-day Neighborhood Emergency Services Team (NEST) trainingcovering medical safety, anti-terrorism, earthquake and fire drills, search and rescue operations, emergency preparedness, psychology and team organization, water safety, and evacuation center managementwas conducted for Los Baños residents on 20-25 February 2013.

Selected residents from Barangays Tadlac and Bambang were participants in the training.

“We partnered with IRRI when we learned that they were looking for a community relations program that involves community involvement to raise awareness on emergency management and preparedness,” said Louie Domingo, director of the Emergency Research Center (ERC).

The NEST training is being provided to barangays around the IRRI campus to arm residents with disaster management knowledge. It will be conducted every third week of the month.

IRRI's Host Country and Community Relations Office (HCCRO) organized the activity jointly with the ERC.



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Selasa, 19 Februari 2013

Key book on rice in Laos translated

Rice in Laos, originally published in English in 2006, discusses the relationship of the Lao people with rice from historical, cultural, and agricultural perspectives. It has now been translated in Lao language and released in paperback.

Rice in Laos was funded by the Australian Council for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and includes chapters on the history, traditions, and rituals associated with rice in rice production systems.


The great diversity in rice germplasm, rice environments, biotic and abiotic stresses, and crop management practices in rice production systems in Laos are also tackled in comprehensive chapters.

The English language version of the book can be downloaded for free.

"I welcome the completion of the translation to Phaasa Lao of the Rice in Laos book and its publication,” said Benjamin Samson, IRRI liaison scientist to Laos. “The information and insights of Lao researchers, scientists, and IRRI staff from years of collaboration distilled in the book are now accessible to the Lao people. This would ease dissemination of ideas and technical information to the predominantly Phaasa Lao-speaking staff of government, education, and research institutions; and rice millers and farmers." he said.

ACIAR has been a reliable partner to IRRI, as well as to Laos. Recent ACIAR support to Laos that involved substantial IRRI contributions are projects on developing improved farming and marketing systems for rural livelihoods in rainfed southern Laos; and developing multi-scale climate change adaptation strategies for farming communities in Laos, as well as in Cambodia, Bangladesh, and India.

An independent ACIAR study has also shown that IRRI’s varietal improvement work has resulted in an extra US$ 1.46 billion worth of rice every year from 1985-2009 to the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia.




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GRiSP director named into Royal Holland Society

Bas Bouman, director of the Global Rice Science Partnership or GRISP, has just been invited as foreign member of the prestigious Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities.

The Society was established in 1752 by seven distinguished burghers of the city of Haarlem, in the then Republic of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, to promote science and, in the broadest sense, the arts.

It is the oldest learned society in the country and is constituted as a dual body made up of about 350 science promoters (known as "directors") and an equal number of active scholars (known as "members"), drawn from the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences.

Links with institutions outside the Netherlands are maintained, on a personal basis, through the appointment of "foreign members," currently numbering about 30 persons. Membership is granted only by invitation.



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Young rice expert gets international development leader award

Sarah Beebout, a soil chemist at IRRI, has made the list of Devex's recent Manila 40 Under 40 awards—a global program that recognizes 40 international development leaders under the age of 40 in cities around the world.

Devex is the world’s largest community of aid and development professionals.

“The Philippines is home to an extremely dynamic and vibrant international development community driving change both at home and abroad,” Devex Manila Director Pete Troilo said. “The young and committed development talent here deserves this recognition.”

Dr. Beebout was honored with other awardees at a private reception on 19 February2013 in Makati City, the Philippines, that was attended by select government officials, corporate and NGO executives, and community leaders.

Following a public nominations process and rigorous review of more than 250 nominees, awardees were selected based on their influence on the development agenda and impact on development results in the Philippines and abroad.

"Our research is about increasing the amount of zinc in rice, so that families will be able to get enough zinc through their daily diet, even if they can't afford more nutritious foods that are naturally higher in zinc," said Dr. Beebout. "When people have good access to high-zinc rice, there will hopefully be fewer cases of acute malnutrition.

Dr. Beebout joins the ranks of past Devex 40 Under 40 winners, such as U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Rajiv Shah; Cherie Blair Foundation for Women CEO Henriette Kolb; Google’s Jared Cohen; and Obama Administration Senior Foreign Policy Adviser Samantha Power.

Following successful 40 Under 40 events in London in 2011 and Washington, D.C., in 2010, Devex is proud to have selected the Philippines as the first emerging country to host this event.

Chevron is the founding sponsor of the Devex 40 Under 40.



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Selasa, 12 Februari 2013

Bangladesh: US envoy tours CSISA activity sites in Khulna

US Ambassador to Bangladesh Dan Mozena
discusses with local farmers the advantage of new
short-duration rice and mustard seeds (11 February).
Dan Mozena, US ambassador to Bangladesh, recently visited activity sites under the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project at Banshgata Village in the Satkhira District.

CSISA activities in the area aim to test and introduce technologies that will allow farmers to improve their rice production and increase the number of crops they can grow.

These technologies are:

  • Short-duration rice varieties that allow time for farmers to also grow mustard
  • Mechanized direct-seeding
  • Improved irrigation equipment, such as the low-lift axial flow pump that uses less fuel
  • Cultivation of salt- and drought-tolerant varieties of wheat and maize
  • Improved fertilizer application equipment, such as the urea deep-placement applicator
  • Improved hatchery management and supply of good-quality fish fry for the community
The program in Banshgata Village involves the participation of about 70 farming families, with an additional 300 farmers indirectly benefiting.

The US ambassador was hosted by the following CSISA staff during his visit: Timothy Russell, IRRI representative for Bangladesh and CSISA-BD chief-of-party; Tim Krupnik, farming systems agronomist, CIMMYT; M.A. Bari, manager, and Kharibul Bashar, consultant, both of the CSISA Seed Project.


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Myanmar: Top officials discuss bigger role, needs, in rice production

Meetings were held in late January to update Myanmar partners on activities involving IRRI in Myanmar, particularly in relation to four current projects funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, the United Nations Development Programme, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

On the 31 January meeting held in Nay Pyi Taw, the national capital, U Myint Hlaing, minister of agriculture and irrigation, mentioned Myanmar’s emerging role in global food security and highlighted the importance of research to help the country increase production and to improve the quality of rice.

The meeting was attended by some 60 participants from different departments under the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation. The participants included the minister of agriculture and irrigation, the director generals of the Department of Agriculture (DoA) and the Department of Agriculture Research, DoA division directors, and representatives from Yezin Agricultural University and the Department of Agricultural Planning.

David Johnson, Program 3 leader and head of IRRI's Crop and Environmental Sciences Division, gave the opening remarks and presented about IRRI's project activities in the different rice environments of Myanmar.

U Kyaw Win, director general of the DoA, requested more collaboration with IRRI to build on the cooperation since the 1960s between IRRI and Myanmar. He said Myanmar needs more technologies on crop management and postharvest as well as pathways to bring technologies to farmers.

Madonna Casimero, IRRI senior scientist based in Myanmar, gave an overview about the IRRI Myanmar Office and its staff, projects, capacity-building plans, and opportunities.

Grant Singleton, leader of several IRRI-Myanmar projects, discussed project objectives and outputs. He and consultant U Than Aye then facilitated an open discussion and drafted agreed actions.

Andy Nelson, geographer and head of IRRI’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Laboratory, discussed approaches, progress, and plans for a project involving GIS and remote sensing.

Myo Aung Kyaw, IRRI postharvest consultant, provided updates on postharvest activities.

Trina Mendoza, IRRI communication specialist, presented about opportunities to improve communication of project outputs, while IRRI Ph.D. student Rica Flor discussed the concept of learning alliances, networks, and system analysis. Ms. Flor also facilitated a workshop on systems analysis the next day with representative stakeholders.

A project meeting was also held in Bogale Township, Ayeyarwady Division, on 28 January, with partners from local township and DoA offices in Bogale and Labutta, and non-government organizations including Welthungerhilfe, GRET, and Mercy Corps. 



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Indonesia: National workshop on biochar for food security held

The National Workshop on Biochar for Food Security was held on 4-5 February 2013 at the Indonesian Center for Food Crops Research and Development (ICFORD).

The workshop aimed to consolidate ongoing research activities and identify research priorities, and develop a research network across national research communities in Indonesia.

Twenty-seven participants came from IRRI, ICFORD, Hokkaido University, and various research institutions in Indonesia (Lambung Mangkurat University, Lampung University, Indonesian Center for Agricultural Library and Technology Dissemination, Indonesian Swampland Agricultural Research Institute, Indonesian Agricultural Environment Research Institute, University of Mataram, University of Tribhuwana Tunggadewi, Center for Socio-Economic and Policy Research on Forestry, Brawijaya University, R&D of Forestry Engineering and Forest Products Processing, Indonesian Soil Research Institute, and Center for Socio Economic and Policy Research on Forestry).

Ir. Hasil Sembiring, ICFORD director, opened the event.

The workshop was organized by IRRI and the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences in collaboration with ICFORD. 


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Local police chiefs and IRRI commit to keep community secure

The chiefs of police from the three municipalities that host the IRRI Headquarters met with key IRRI officers on 8 February to discuss shared security concerns and responsibilities.

P. Supt. Conrado Masongsong (Los Baños), PCI Pastor Castillo (Bay), and PO Flores (representing PCI Jesson Bombasito, Calauan chief of police) were welcomed by V. Bruce J. Tolentino, IRRI deputy director general for communication and partnerships.

Other IRRI officers in the meeting were Julian Lapitan (National Programs Relations), Glenn Enriquez (Safety and Security Services), Eugeniano Perez III (Legal Office), Joyce Finegan (Human Resource Services), Hiram Gomez (Supply Chain Services), George Cinconiegue, Jr. (Transport Services),
Ria Anna Dimapilis (Events, Visitors, and Exhibits Office), and Sylvia Avance (Host Country and Community Relations Office).

Discussion covered shared concerns on public safety and security. The process highlighted the participants' mutual commitment to work together to maintain peace and order for the community as a whole. This is a special concern in the communities surrounding UPLB and IRRI, as there are many young students and researchers from as many as 31 foreign countries working at IRRI.

The police chiefs and the IRRI participants exchanged congratulations on their respective and continuing efforts to keep the local community secure. Each pledged to keep in continuing communication, and shared detailed contact information by telephone, cellphone, and hotline.

To further inform and involve IRRI staff in shared security matters, Dr. Tolentino invited LB Police Chief Masongsong to speak in an upcoming IRRI Seminar.

The police chiefs also thanked IRRI for maintaining communication and a close working relationship with their forces. They added that they are working hard to upgrade their police capacities to come up to standard benchmarks. Currently, there is a low ratio of police to the number of civilians (1 per 1,000 in Los Baños, where the ideal ratio is 1 per 500). 



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Selasa, 05 Februari 2013

Dawn breaks on a new extension concept

A new company that specializes in marketing web and mobile-based applications is what 24 young global leaders have proposed as one solution to bring the fruits of research to more people.

In the culmination event of the 30th Global Young Leaders Programme (YLP) held in Makati, Philippines on 25 January 2013, the participants, who are professionals from different companies and non-profit organisations, presented their recommendations on how to commercialize research outputs, like the Nutrient Manager for Rice,  in a bid to reach a larger number of beneficiaries. The Final Forum was hosted by the Asian Institute for Management (AIM).

"IRRI’s work is necessary because in total, all countries need to produce at least 8 million tons of rice more every year to meet the needs of consumers, and to ensure that the productivity of rice farms is sustained or even improved in the face of decreasing resources due to population growth and climate change," said V. Bruce J. Tolentino, IRRI's deputy director general for communication and partnerships. "To meet the challenge of yields, we need to promote the science that pushes farm productivity and that enables farmers to produce larger amounts of food out of the same area of land and at the same time increase their incomes."

Dr. Tolentino said that IRRI, which has traditionally worked with governments in extending its research outputs, needs to set its sights farther down the value-chain. "We realize that we also need to work with the larger part of the extension system - and this is the private sector," he added. 

The participants recommended that a company, dubbed "Farm Saya" be built under collaborations between public, private, and non-government partners. Farm Saya will provide a suite of comprehensive information services to farmers, including  nutrient management advice, weather and prices updates, as well as access to service providers for the delivery of farming and non-farming goods and services

"This programme is about how to take science and make meaning of it in terms of solving problems of our world, and in this case, the all-important issue of food and rice," said Chandran Nair, founder of the Global Institute For Tomorrow (GIFT), which sponsored the YLP, in partnership with IRRI.

"It cannot be done unless it is commercialized in such a way that answers a fundamental problem. This is the challenge that our YLP participants looked at - creating business models for technology as a platform for enterprise creation," Nair added.

The business model they proposed will build on a large rural network of subscribers of the web/mobile applications.

The Farm Saya concept, the participants said, allows research organizations like IRRI to deliver research to farmers through an equity-based sustainable model. They explained that such an undertaking will need partnership with the private sector, strong support from the government, and farmers as shareholders.

Participant Linda Xu, regional manager for power distribution with DSM Engineering Plastic in China said that reaching farmers in rural areas is hard. "Our ideas empower farmers by bringing them together to create a larger entity. This will provide them with better negotiating power when they have to deal with input providers like micro-finance institutions."

The 30th YLP ran for two weeks from 14 January to 25 January 2013, and was conducted in Hong Kong and at IRRI headquarters in the Philippines.

3rd Africa Rice Congress to be held in October 2013

The 3rd Africa Rice Congress will be held on 21-24 October 2013 in Yaoundé, Cameroun. With the theme “Rice Science for Food Security and Agri-business Development in Africa,” the Congress will gather representatives from the public and private sector, civil society organizations, farmer associations, and research and extension communities engaged in the development of Africa’s rice sector.

The Congress will also tackle advances in rice science and technology aimed at improving production, processing, and marketing practices across the rice value chain in Africa. There will also be discussions about institutional innovations, policies, and key investments needed to significantly increase rice production, processing, and marketing in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The event will be organized by the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) in collaboration with the Government of Cameroun.

Registration forms are available for participants (PDF | online) and for sponsorship (PDF | online).


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South Asia agriculture officials learn about IRRI's work

Senior government officials of South Asian countries India, Bangladesh, and Nepal came to IRRI for a 2-day awareness and consultation workshop on 4-5 February 2013.

The visitors came to IRRI to learn about the Stress-Tolerant Rice for Africa and South Asia (STRASA) Project, coordinated by IRRI in South Asia, and about IRRI's other projects in their countries. They were welcomed by V. Bruce J. Tolentino, IRRI deputy director general for communication and partnerships, and Abdelbagi Ismail, IRRI principal scientist and STRASA project leader.

The officials had discussions with members of IRRI management and scientists on IRRI's research on nutrient-enriched rice, Global Rice Science Partnerships (GRiSP) initiatives, and Nutrient Manager. They were also given an update on stress-tolerant rice varieties developed and disseminated by IRRI in partnership with the NARES, such as Swarna-Sub 1, Sahbhagi Dhan, and CSR36 for submergence-, drought-, and salinity-prone areas, respectively.

The visitors went on a tour of the Institute's facilities—the Training Center, International Rice Genebank, and the Molecular Marker Applications and Genetic Transformation laboratories, as well as of the Cybervillage project in a neighboring town.

The officials' visit was an initiative of the STRASA Project aimed to further enhance IRRI's partnership with the governments of these countries and encourage more support as the Institute pursues long-term research in agriculture, specifically in rice research, in South Asia.

The senior government officials were from:

India
  • Mukesh Khullar, joint secretary (crops), Ministry of Agriculture
  • Narendra Bhooshan, joint secretary (machinery and technology), Ministry of Agriculture
  • Anil Chandra Punetha, principal secretary, Department of Agriculture, Government of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad
  • Vivek Kumar Singh, secretary, Department of Agriculture, Government of Bihar, Patna
  • Rang Lal Jamuda, principal secretary, Department of Agriculture, Government of Odisha, Bhubaneswar
  • Arun Kumar Singh, secretary, Department of Agriculture, Government of Jharkhand, Ranchi 
  • Manmath Kumar Raut, principal secretary and agriculture production commissioner, Department of Agriculture, Government of Chhattisgarh, Raipur
Bangladesh
  • Anwar Faruque, additional secretary and director general, Seed Wing, Ministry of Agriculture
  • Mr. Nuruzzaman, member director, Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation, Ministry of Agriculture
Nepal
  • Uttam Kumar Bhattarai, joint secretary, Ministry of Agricultural Development
  • Yagya P. Giri, director for research, Nepal Agricultural Research Council



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Indonesia: Asian countries get help in use of crop modeling for rice production

IRRI delivered a crop modeling training, one of a series, in Indonesia as part of efforts of the RIICE Project to help Asian countries monitor rice production using space-borne remote sensing combined with a biophysical crop model.

The RIICE—or Remote sensing-based information and Insurance for Crops in Emerging economies, or RIICE (http://www.riice.org)—Project aims to develop a system that will merge satellite-based observation using the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging system and crop simulation modeling to estimate actual rice yield and production in South East and South Asian countries.


Thirteen scientists from various Indonesian research institutes were presented the latest version of the ORYZA2000 crop modeling tool and taught crop modeling principles pertaining to the mechanism used by the model on estimation of yield potential against given environmental and soil conditions.

While the methodology is being developed, the training series tookplace in India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia—key partners of the project—to help local scientists process SAR data to generate rice area and phenology maps and do crop modeling.

The training event was held at the Indonesian Centre for Agricultural Land Resources Research and Development or ICALRD, one of the research and management units under the Indonesian Agency for Agricultural Research and Development, on 28-31 January 2013. 



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Philippines: Climate info at fingertips of rice researchers

The Environmental Logging System, or Envilog, is a portable device that could take actual readings of temperature, rainfall, wind speed, wind direction, amount of sunlight, atmospheric pressure, humidity, and water height in rice fields. 

Envilog, developed by a team of young robotics enthusiasts, bagged the Most Innovative App (or Special Jury Award) from last year's hugely successful BigAs Hackathon, event organized by IRRI in collaboration with SMART Communications in the Philippines.

Envilog will be helpful for rice researchers who want environment data at their fingertips anytime, anywhere. It’s a researcher's dream that could soon turn into reality.

"We worked on making last year's version of our Envilog more versatile so that researchers now have the option to choose just the sensors they want, such as temperature, humidity, wind speed, and not others," said Franklin Binos II, leader of PhilRobotics, the team that made Envilog. "Plus, I think this upgraded version now works pretty much like an automated weather station," he added.

Envilog can send stored data via GSM, a standard way for sharing data on mobile networks, while GPS and SD card options can be used to save or back-up data. It operates on a solar-powered battery.

"The relationship between IRRI and PhilRobotics is a perfect match that will enable us to introduce affordable technology into farmer's fields," said Marco van den Berg, IRRI chief information officer. "PhilRobotics will further develop Envilog and come up with a prototype that's nearly ready to go," he added. 

Marco also mentioned that several IRRI scientists have shown an interest in Envilog and may be able to help field-test and validate it when available.

The PhilRobotics team will present to IRRI staff about Envilog in a seminar on Thursday, 7 February 2013.






The next big tech push for rice is coming in August—the BigAs2 Hack.

Read about the 2012 BigAs Hackathon


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India: IRRI bids CSISA leader goodbye

The IRRI India Office bid farewell M.S. Rao, who served as CEO for the CSISA Project until recently, with a lunch get-together on 30 January 2013.

CG Center representatives in New Delhi, IRRI staff, and colleagues of Mr. Rao in CSISA came to wish Mr. Rao and his wife well.

Norm Macdonald, IRRI deputy director general for management services, was visiting India at the time and also attended. He read a message for Mr. Rao on behalf of Robert Zeigler, IRRI director general, and presented a plaque of recognition.

J.K. Ladha, IRRI representative to India, lauded Mr. Rao's work during the early and crucial phases of the IRRI-led CSISA Project, stating that Mr. Rao’s private sector background helped CSISA forge partnerships with multi-locational and multi-sectoral organizations involved in agricultural development.

Mr. Rao, in turn, expressed hope that CSISA-promoted RCTs will make a greater impact on agriculture practices in farming communities.


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