IRRI appoints acting representative for India and Nepal

Dr. Umesh Singh, acting Country Representative for IRRI-India and -Nepal

Umesh Singh, senior scientist at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), has been named acting representative for India and Nepal. Dr. Singh is replacing  J. K. Ladha who recently completed his term for the said post. Dr. Ladha is returning to IRRI headquarters in the Philippines to continue his research.

Dr. Singh is noted for his outstanding work in rice research and for promoting improved seed systems across South Asia. He is also the South Asia regional coordinator of the Stress-Tolerant Rice for Africa and South Asia (STRASA).  As IRRI representative, Dr. Singh will continue to strengthen relationships and oversee IRRI’s current research and development activities with the two countries.

Some of IRRI’s current R&D activities with India include exploring rice genes, breeding improved varieties, improving grain quality, fine-tuning rice farming systems, and coping with climate change.
With Nepal, IRRI is developing a seed business model involving key seed specialists, government officials, private companies, and community groups or cooperatives. IRRI and Nepal are also working on enhancing the rural poor’s access to improved agricultural technologies, especially in stress-prone areas.

IRRI’s collaboration with the two countries has resulted in hundreds of improved rice varieties that are pest and disease resistant. Recently, a number of climate-smart rice varieties, which can withstand drought, flooding, and salinity, have been released in India and Nepal. These varieties have reached millions of farmers in the two countries and are helping increase and stabilize rice productivity despite climate change.

Meanwhile, Matthew Morell, IRRI deputy director general for research, acknowledged Dr.  Ladha’s role as instrumental in securing closer relationships with key agencies in each country, notably the Indian Council for Agricultural Research, the Nepal Agricultural Research Council, and other institutions. “These relationships position IRRI strongly for the future,” Dr. Morell said. “IRRI greatly appreciates Dr. Ladha's contribution in this role.”

He added that, “JK's contribution to India and Nepal is celebrated beyond IRRI, as exemplified by the recent announcement of his being awarded the prestigious International Service in Crop Science Award for 2015 by the Crop Science Society of America.”

Dr. Morell is hopeful and confident that IRRI partners will extend their support to Dr. Singh as he takes on these responsibilities.

Odisha Government and IRRI to collaborate on making rice farming more profitable for farmers

A delegation of state officials from Odisha, headed by State Chief Secretary Shri Gokul Chandra Pati visited the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to review and identify areas for collaboration targeting the development of its rice sector. Odisha is seventh biggest producer of rice in India with more than seven million tons output every year.

“There is a need for a criteria that ensures the seeds developed and disseminated by IRRI effectively increase farmers’ income,” said Chief Secretary Pati.

Deputy Director General for Research Matthew Morell assured the officials that IRRI’s research will ensure income profitability for farmers by developing rice varieties that are income-centric.

The Chief Secretary also wanted to learn more about IRRI's  ongoing work on stress-tolerant rice varieties and their dissemination in India, particularly Odisha.   Swarna-Sub1, the flood-tolerant version of the popular mega-variety Swarna (MTU 7029) occupies more than 30% of the total rice area in Odisha. Most of the feedback from farmers on Swarna-Sub1 was quite positive and many farmers who grew Swarna-Sub1 for the first time in 2012 on parts of their land have expanded it to their entire landholding.

He  was also briefed on developing and disseminating good management practices, including crop manager for mobile phones, and possible areas of collaboration on rice value chain and training and extension, especially for women farmers.

The long-standing partnership between India and IRRI was highlighted by IRRI’s Deputy Director General for Communication and Partnerships Bruce Tolentino and senior scientists Uma Shankar Singh, Samarendu Mohanty, Kshirod Jena, and Jagdish Ladha.

The Chief Secretary and Shri Rajesh Verma, principal state secretary- agriculture, also toured the International Rice Genebank, the Grain Quality and Nutrition Center, the Genetic Transformation laboratory, several IRRI experiment stations, and the Riceworld Museum.

The visit on 10 August 2015 was an initiative of the Stress-tolerant Rice for Africa and South Asia (STRASA) Project. The event was facilitated by Uma Shankar Singh , STRASA’s South Asia Regional Coordinator and acting IRRI representative to India and Nepal;  Sudhanshu Singh,  IRRI rainfed lowland agronomist to South Asia;, and Abdelbagi Ismail, overall STRASA project leader and IRRI principal scientist.

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Asia Rice Foundation USA announces 2015 Travel and Study Grant winners

During their 16th annual meeting, held on 25 July at U.C. Davis, the trustees of the Asia Rice  Foundation USA (ARFUSA) announced four 2015 winners of the organization’s Travel and Study Award Program. The objective is to help develop the next generation of young rice scientists.

They are Jenna Reeger, pursuing a PhD in plant biology at Penn State University; Anuj Kumar, a Monsanto Beachell-Borlaug International Research Fellow doing research on rice drought tolerance and water use efficiency at the University of Arkansas; Anne-Marie Mitchell, a Peace Corps Volunteer (2014-16) in Benin under the Master’s International Program with Cornell University; and Hussain Sharifi, a PhD student in the Agro-Ecosystems Laboratory at the University of California at Davis.

Ms. Reeger, a University Graduate Fellow, a Graham Endowed Fellow, and Roche/ARCS Foundation Scholar, is finishing her first year with Kathleen Brown and Jonathan Lynch in the Roots Lab, studying anatomical traits of rice roots and their genetic controls. Jenna is determining the influence of increased percent aerenchyma area and other root anatomical traits on drought tolerance in rice in greenhouse and field trials and comparing anatomical trait development and influence under drought stress between greenhouse-grown and field-grown rice.

She is already attending IRRI’s 2015 Rice: Research to Production Course, 10-28 August, where she is learning the fundamentals of rice production and the key research concepts and methods employed in IRRI’s programs for rice improvement. She will be able to make use of that knowledge in her own research. She plans to return to IRRI to conduct detailed drought trials with Dr. Amelia Henry, IRRI’s drought physiologist.

Mr. Kumar is doing his PhD studies in the department of Crop, Soil, & Environmental Sciences (CSES) at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville with Dr. Andy Pereira as his major advisor. His project, Development and Characterization of Rice Genotypes for Water-Use Efficiency and Drought Resistance, is a collaborative research between University of Arkansas and IRRI. His aim is to screen the USDA rice mini-core collection for water use efficiency and drought resistance related parameters, generate and evaluate the populations (F2, BC1, etc.) from high-yielding, but drought-sensitive and drought-tolerant genotypes, and map QTLs for grain yield and drought-related parameters.

His trip to IRRI will include participation in the international Molecular Breeding Course (28 Sept.-9 Oct.) and a continued stay at the Institute through Dec. 2015 to conduct some research training including work with Dr. Arvind Kumar, leader of IRRI’s rainfed lowland South Asia plant breeding group, for phenotyping of an F2 population (indica x glaberrima) and some other advanced lines. He will also learn other advance technologies to impose drought in the field.

Ms. Mitchell is studying international agriculture and rural development while in the West African nation of Benin. As a volunteer, she is serving as the Rice Programs Manager for the 2015 Food Security Committee where she is developing informational rice manuals and resources and training fellow volunteers on best management practices that can be implemented in their respective communities. The aim of her project is to reinforce best management practices and to advance simple technologies through the discovery of the most effective tools for weeding rice fields.

Through farmer experimentation, she hopes to determine the most suitable weeding instruments for the southeastern region of the country. With the assistance of the Union of Rice Farmers of the Oueme Plateau (URIZOP), the Collaborative Council of Rice Farmers in Benin (CCR-­‐B), and Farm Integrated Agricultural Solidarity (SAIN), 20 rice farmers from around the Oueme Department will be chosen to experiment with three different weeding methods: by hand or with a hand tool, with a cono-­‐weeder, and using a locally—made, ecologically—adapted weeder. This equipment is being financed by the ARFUSA grant.

Before the start of the growing season in October, farmers will be chosen by CCR-­‐B and trained on best management principles and surveyed on their perception of rice practices and the overall experiment. As a part of the experiment, farmers will be asked to use 9-­‐12 rice plots, using 3-­‐4 plots per weeding method. Post-­‐surveys will be conducted at the end of the season (April-May 2016) to evaluate the advantages or disadvantages of each weeding method.

Mr. Sharifi, a native of Afghanistan, is aiming to develop a predictive tool in order to support

improvements in rice breeding, production, quality, and management. To this end, he is evaluating the effects of environmental factors (such as temperature, photoperiod sensitivity, and field management practices, including irrigation practices such as the alternate wetting-drying system) on rice growth and development.

As a prominent part of his research, he has tested the accuracy of Oryza2000 and CERES-Rice, widely used rice crop growth models, under these environmental variables. The accuracy of these models under varying environmental factors is essential to efficient rice crop management—and consequently yield and profitability—in the face of climate change. Not wasting any time, he has already arrived at IRRI to attend the 2015 Rice: Research to Production Course, which ARFUSA is funding for him. Particularly interested in crop modeling, he will also be conferring with Tao Li, IRRI’s crop modeler.

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For more information about ARFUSA, go to www.asiariceusa.org

PRISM management team holds meeting, visits project partners in Iloilo

The PRISM management team at San Miguel, Iloilo, one of the municipalities that the project monitors.

The management team (MT) of the Philippine Rice Information System (PRISM) Project conducted its third quarterly meeting in Iloilo City on 5 August 2015. This is the first PRISM MT meeting conducted outside of Luzon. The day before, the team took the opportunity to present the project outputs of the 2015 dry season to partners from the Department of Agriculture Regional Field Office VI (DA-RFO-VI, Western Visayas). They also handed over supplies, which included mobile phones, grain moisture meters, portable spring balances, and rubber boots. 

The day after the meeting, the team joined the DA-RFO-VI partners in collecting data from farmers’ fields. They also paid a courtesy call to Mayor Dunstan Claudio Sale of San Miguel, Iloilo, one of the municipalities monitored by PRISM. Mayor Sale and Vice Mayor Bonifacio Salapantan, Jr., joined the team during their monitoring activity—a clear indication of interest in and support for the project by partners in the local government unit. During the visit, IRRI scientist Nancy Castilla explained the causes and management of diseases and insect pest injuries that were observed in the area. Mr. Arnel Rala, another IRRI scientist, explained the use of electronic survey forms installed in smartphones for data collection and submission.

The mayor acknowledged that, by generating timely and accurate information on rice, the project will help improve farmers’ knowledge on rice production.

PRISM, a collaborative project among DA-PhilRice, DA-Bureau of Plant Industry, the DA-RFOs, and IRRI in support of the Department of Agriculture’s Food Staples Sufficiency Program, is funded by the National Rice Program through the Bureau of Agricultural Research. PRISM regional partners regularly collect data, which goes simultaneously with satellite image acquisition, from selected rice fields during a cropping season. They also interview farmers to collect information on cropping practices and data on pest injuries in the field at the booting and dough stages of the rice crop. There are 780 rice fields being monitored this wet season throughout the country; 60 of these are in the municipalities of San Miguel, Dingle, and Passi in Region VI.

IRRI Training Center conducts course on rice research to production

IRRI Training Center, in collaboration with the National Science Foundation, Cornell University, and Colorado State University, is currently conducting a three-week course on rice research to production from 10–28 August at IRRI headquarters, Philippines.

The course aims to help the participants understand the basics of rice production through practical activities and field visits. In addition, it also aims to introduce them to rice research through hands-on activities related to breeding, molecular genetics, and genomics. Furthermore, the course aims to gather young rice scientists and to develop international research collaborations in the future.

There are 26 participants from 11 countries, namely Cambodia, Columbia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, Peru, Philippines, Sierra Leone, and the United States.

The course is coordinated by Noel P. Magor, head of the Training Center, Hei Leung, principal scientist at the Crop and Environmental Sciences Division, and Jan Leach, professor at Colorado State University. Jason Beebout and Eugenio Castro, Jr. are course co-coordinators.

Rice: Research to Production is an annual course that has been offered for the past 9 years. For more information about this course and for other training opportunities, please visit www.training.irri.org.

Some key points regarding retraction of Golden Rice study

You may have come across recent reports on a retraction of a journal article on Golden Rice. This is not a new issue. While IRRI was not involved with the study, the Institute is committed to making sure the research continues because of the Golden Rice project’s crucial humanitarian purpose. Bob Zeigler posted a blog on this topic almost two years ago. The points Bob made about the retracted article are just as valid now:

“I cannot speak for what happened with the Golden Rice research in China, as IRRI and our partners working with us on Golden Rice were not involved. But it is important to note that the Tufts study wasn't a safety trial, because existing research was already available that showed that beta-carotene in Golden Rice was as safe as beta-carotene in other foods. As the statement from Tufts notes, their review found no concerns related to the safety of the research subjects. From all reports, it is very clear, perhaps more importantly, that no one was harmed in any way in the China trials. To the contrary, the studies showed unequivocally that Golden Rice is an effective way to improve the Vitamin A status of deficient children. This is great news, indeed!

I was disappointed, of course, to hear from Tufts that the research itself was found not to have been conducted in full compliance with the appropriate board policy or relevant regulations. But I don't think that these lapses should be used as a cynical excuse to stop all Golden Rice research, or indeed to be used as an inflammatory attack point to suggest that everyone involved in Golden Rice research has misguided intentions or that the research should be stopped.

Golden Rice offers a very unique opportunity to improve the nutrition of people—particularly of women and children in Asia—who are not reached by current interventions to reduce Vitamin A deficiency.”

Here’s a statement from a Tufts University spokesperson:

“No questions were raised about the integrity of the study data, accuracy of the research results or safety of the research subjects.  The decision to retract a paper is ultimately a matter between the journal and the authors, and we must respect an academic journal’s editorial process and decisions…

There was no evidence found of falsification or fabrication of the data that underlie the study’s primary findings. Those reviews did, however, determine that the research had not been conducted in full compliance with Tufts research policies and federal research regulations.”

For more information, please contact the Healthier Rice communication team through Aileen Garcia (ma.garcia@irri.org), Senior Communication Specialist, Golden Rice Project. 

IRRI welcomes UPLB College of Agriculture freshmen

The University of the Philippines Los Baños College of Agriculture (UPLB-CA) held an orientation for UPLB-CA freshmen and their parents on Sunday, 2 August 2015. This included a guided tour of the IRRI headquarters (HQ) facilities, which was made possible through partnership efforts led by the newly appointed UPLB-CA dean, Dr. Enrico P. Supangco, and IRRI Deputy Director General for Communication and Partnerships, Dr. Bruce J. Tolentino.

The orientation was well attended by around 300 BS Agriculture, BS Agricultural Biotechnology, and BS Food Technology freshmen and their parents. The morning program at the UPLB Baker Hall intended to motivate future scientists and agricultural technology enthusiasts through the inspiring messages delivered by the dean and directors of the UPLB-CA clusters, and other academicians and scientists. Guidelines and assistance programs offered by CA and UPLB were also discussed. The UPLB-CA research clusters and academic organizations had their booths set up in Baker Hall, including those of other research institutions around the campus and some from the private sector. The IRRI booth was  set up by staff members of IRRI’s Events and Visitors Office (EVO) and manned by members of the IRRI Filipino Scientists Association (IFSA). These booths served to promote future career opportunities in the field of agriculture.

The guided bleacher tour of the IRRI HQ facilities was done in the afternoon, in which IFSA members served as guides for the students, parents, and some members of the CA faculty. The tour kicked off at the Long-Term Continuous Cropping Experiment plots, followed by IRRI’s research buildings, screenhouses, salinity-submergence plots, pure breed variety plots, and finally, the IRRI Riceworld Museum.

UPLB has always been a strong partner of IRRI in its research mission. It not only hosts IRRI’s headquarters, but also provides a steady and reliable stream of scientists and scientific training since 1960, when the Institute was founded.

To read more about IRRI and UPLB collaborative projects and partnerships, visit http://irri.org/our-work/locations/uplb.