Sulo’s oath taking and team building

Elected officers of the Sulo ng Pamayanan took their oaths of office on 25 April 2014 at the Pamana Resort. IRRI’s Partnership Office afterwards facilitated the team building.  On April 24, the elected officers had a planning activity at IRRI.

The Sulo ng Pamayanan is a non-profit organization organized by IRRI’s Partnerships Office ( Philippine Desk), that aims to encourage and empower women to be effective leaders of the community.
The newly elected officers of Sulo presented the background of the organization and its future plans for livelihood, health and women empowerment during the team building.

The following are the newly-elected officers for 2014-2015:

President: Edna Curibot

Vice President: Vicky Briones

Secretary: Dory Lagman

Treasurer: Josie Navallo

Auditor: Edith Lozano

PRO: Ela Genil

PRO: Cely Manarin

The Team Building activities focused on achieving values on leadership and being a team such as unity, patience, initiative and timing, and the importance of communication.



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Bagging hope

An initiative that started as a livelihood project for the residents in San Agustin, Bay, Laguna on 2012, has finally reached the people of Los Baños.

On 29 April  2014, the Public Employment Service Office (PESO) of Los Banos, in partnership with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), conducted a paper bag making activity for senior citizens.

Mr. Joselito Platon, associate for Philippine desk at IRRI, facilitated the training for the senior citizens in Los Baños.

PESO and IRRI hope to inspire these senior citizens to form a group and make use of the skill they have obtained in order to generate income.

The paper rice bag making was initiated for the residents of San Agustin, in Bay last 2012.  IRRI buys the paper bags from them as containers for the brown rice tokens given to VIP guests and visitors in the Institute. 

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IRRI and PESO, from skills training to gainful employment

The Partnerships Office of IRRI continued to reinforce its partnership with the Public Employment Service Office (PESO) of Los Baños, Laguna in offering livelihood courses and technical skills training to the unemployed residents of Los Baños and Bay.  PESO is the government’s arm in addressing education and employment issues. IRRI funds the following training programs for 2014:  Refrigeration and air-conditioning technology, installation and electrical maintenance, domestic household appliance and electronics repair, and basic cosmetology course, Ganda Mo, Hanapbuhay Ko (in partnerships with the Ang-Hortaleza Foundation).

Completion of each of the courses will allow graduates to take the National Certification II (NC II) from the Technical Education Skills and Development Authority (NEDA). The NC II certificate is globally accepted and increases a person’s chance of being accepted for employment in other countries.

IRRI sponsors this training programs to help its host communities improve livelihood opportunities for its low-income residents, and lessen concerns that may be caused by unemployment in the areas, especially in the areas of  security, and peace and order.

Presently, the PESO offers free training programs for computer hardware service II, carpentry II, basic plumbing II, automotive servicing II, dress making, electrical maintenance II, ref and air-conditioning technology II, basic cosmetology, motorcycle technician, and call center training/ English proficiency.
Each class can accept a maximum of 60 participants per course.  Classes are held every Saturday.

For those who have relatives or friends in Los Baños and Bay who may be interested to enroll,
please contact the PESO Manager, Ms. Glecy Trinidad at 049-536-5976.

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IRRI TC and ITCC RDA conducted 12th RTTS Training

By Andrea Joyce C. Arbues

The 12th Training Workshop on Rice Technology Transfer Systems (RTTS) in Asia was held at Suwon, Korea on 21 April-2 May 2014. RTTS was a joint collaboration of the IRRI Training Center (TC) and the International Technology Cooperation Center (ITCC) Rural Development Administration (RDA). This annual event aimed to showcase South Korea’s latest rice technology systems and agricultural linkages as well as to inspire and share rice farming knowledge that could be applicable to the participating South East Asian countries.

Since 2002, RTTS has served as an avenue for knowledge sharing and rice technology transfer among participating countries. These countries were Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Philippines, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Training Center’s Head Noel P. Magor, and Senior Training Specialist Ms. Maria Socorro S. Arboleda were workshop resource persons together with the resource persons from ITCC RDA.

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Bangladesh Agricultural University honors Dr. U.S. Singh

The Bangladesh Agricultural University honored renowned IRRI scientist, Dr. Uma Shankar Singh, Senior Scientist (II) & South Asia Regional Project Coordinator, Stress Tolerant Rice for Africa and South Asia (STRASA) in recognition of his remarkable contribution to ensuring food security by enhancing the rice productivity in the country. Prof. Md. Rafiqul Hoque, Vice-Chancellor, Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) presented the award to Dr. Singh in a special ceremony organized by the university on 24 April 2014 at its campus in Mymensingh, Bangladesh in the presence of over 250 researchers and officials of Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA), Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI) and IRRI.

In his address, Prof. Hoque applauded the prolonged partnership of the university with IRRI and the contribution of Dr. Singh in improving the livelihood of poor farmers by promoting and disseminating the seeds of stress tolerant rice varieties to increase and stabilize the rice yield in the unfavorable areas of the country.

“There is strong need to strengthen this bilateral cooperation between IRRI and BAU to nurture the research fraternity for scientific excellence,” he said. Dr. Uma Shankar Singh, while receiving the award, thanked the university for recognizing the contribution of IRRI and highly acclaimed the role of BAU management, researchers and other national partners in developing and disseminating the stress tolerant rice varieties in the country and taking them to larger masses in a very short span of time.

“We value our strategic partnership with BAU and extend full support to this endeavor of ensuring food security and eliminating hunger and poverty in the region,” he said. Dr. Subash Chandra Chakraborly, Director General, BFRI and Dr. M.A. Bari, Project Scientist, BMGF-STRASA, IRRI, Dhaka graced the occasion as special guests.  Professor Dr. Lutful Hassan, Director, Bangladesh Agricultural University Research System (BAURES) chaired the session.

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SEAsian countries take part in resolving post-production losses

Six countries are participating in this year’s first offering of the Rice: Post-Production to Market Course at IRRI Headquarters. The 12-day course organized by IRRI Training started on 28 April, and will end on 9 May 2014 

Rice: Post-Production to Market Course addresses the problem of post-production losses that causes deprivation of food security and income to farmers and other chain actors. Wanting to improve their country’s rice post-production gain, 16participants from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, and Thailand participated in the said course.

During the training, participants will have hands-on experience with harvesting and other post-harvest procedures. According to Alfred Schmidley, course co-coordinator and Business Model & Value Chain Specialist, letting participants have hands-on activities do not just train them but make them appreciate the hard work associated with rice farming.

By the end of the course, they will receive a certificate classifying them asqualified evaluators and introducers of garnered rice knowledge.  The participants are expected to be capable of evaluating sources of post-production losses, and the different techniques to manage preventable losses. They must also be familiar with the IRRI Quality Kit used in assessing paddy, milled rice and seed. They must be able to assess rice market and rice standard quality, and design a project and business plan.

Since they will be introducing new knowledge, they will also be taught how to use the Rice Knowledge Bank (RKB), a free-access website that stores all rice science information from experiments in IRRI. 

RKB is a resource in teaching rice farming especially post-production techniques.

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New Rice Knowledge Bank website goes live

Equipped with the latest practical knowledge in rice production for farmers in developing countries, the new and updated Rice Knowledge Bank (RKB) was launched on 2 May 2014.

The world’s leading repository of extension and training materials in rice production showcases rice production techniques, agricultural technologies, and best farming practices based on IRRI’s pool of knowledge from research findings, learning and media resources, and in-country projects. Its content highlights step-by-step production from pre-planting to postharvest management. It also includes decision tools and agronomy guides that can help farmers make sound farming decisions.

 “The Rice Knowledge Bank provides our partners in national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES) and NGOs with an ever-increasing wealth of information on training and rice production which they share with local farmers,” said Mr. Julian Lapitan, head of Partnerships and the Philippine Desk at IRRI.

RKB’s Project Lead Katie Nelson added, “The Rice Knowledge Bank plays an important role in bridging the gap between research and practice.”

“The website provides information on improved rice farming practices and includes several tools to help extension workers and farmers with crop management and disease diagnostics. Many of the materials on the site are formatted as printable fact sheets or production guides in local languages to better reach extension and farmers. This is just the first step, in the coming years we will focus on offline mobile versions of the RKB, radio information packs, and a suite of how-to videos made for farmer audiences.”

In addition to the new, user-friendly design, the Rice Knowledge Bank now features country-specific information developed through IRRI projects in countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Philippines, and Vietnam. Other partners include several countries in Africa such as Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania.

Check-out the new and improved Rice Knowledge Bank at  http://www.knowledgebank.irri.org/.

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