IRRI joins global country officials for agricultural biodiversity promotion workshop

By fostering active engagement through institutional capacity building and joining global discourse, IRRI helps countries create opportunities where they can enhance their respective agricultural–based ecosystem while boosting rice productivity.

Together with other agricultural officials from 19 countries, IRRI participated in a workshop to share strategies on germplasm conservation and the linkage between natural resources management and sustainable agriculture development. It was also an opportunity to discuss the impacts and threats of exotic species to local species, ways to ensure and maintain potential species and enable digitization of biodiversity data.

Lectures and field tours helped participants gain a comprehensive knowledge of Taiwan’s strategies and the current situation of agricultural biodiversity promotion and enhance the opportunity for species exchange. Sessions on knowledge sharing and learning were organized for participants to share their country’s current state of biodiversity conservation and species preservation.

According to Anny Ruth Pame, IRRI Assistant Scientist on Adaptive Agronomy and workshop participant, “This workshop widened my lens about agricultural biodiversity.  Its importance spans from ensuring healthy food production, attaining healthy diets, and for climate change adaptation.  My work at IRRI, through the CORIGAP project, can explore exciting concepts like Citizen Science into assessing the biodiversity indicators we are measuring in our field trials.”

The two-week workshop on agricultural biodiversity promotion was conducted last April 11-24, 2019. It was organized by the Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund (Taiwan ICDF)in order to boost their country partners’ development through assistance on lending and investment, technical cooperation, humanitarian assistance, and international education and training. It was attended by participants from Belize, Brazil, Fiji, Honduras, Indonesia, Jordan, Kingdom of Eswatini, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Russia, Saint Christopher and Nevis, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tuvalu, and Vietnam.

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