India: IRRI joins “Consumer and Marketplace Literacy for Women Entrepreneurs”

The Marketplace Literacy Community Trust, an NGO in India that seeks to promote consumer literacy and entrepreneurship amongst the rural poor, conducted training activity for women’s Self Help Groups in Chennai using their innovative video-based marketplace literacy approach.

This approach to helping disadvantaged and marginalized groups was developed by Professor Madhu Viswanathan of the University of Illinois, with whom IRRI is a partner in understanding postharvest needs.

IRRI’s Alfred Schmidley, value chain specialist, and Aanand Kumar, postharvest specialist of the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), joined the event to learn more about this approach firsthand.

The training, held on 19-21 February 2014, was organized by MLC founder and director R. Venkatasen and his staff, who arranged visits for farmers, millers, and other postharvest chain actors during the visit of Alfred and Aanand.

“This innovative learning approach can be extended to serve postharvest needs and opportunities for women and marginalized farmers as entrepreneurs,” said Alfred. “This could help foster the sustainable adoption of improved postharvest technologies and a better understanding of markets and linkages in the chain.”


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World Food Programme and IRRI team up for shared aims

An agreement was signed by Praveen Agrawal, World Food Programme representative and country director, and Robert Zeigler, IRRI director general, that will bring together complementary expertise to build community resilience and food security in the Philippines.

With the full support of the United Nations and its Food and Agriculture Organization, the five-year collaboration involves policy dialogue, capacity building, local transfer of research products, publications, and partnership building with other stakeholders.

The initial dialogue between the two organizations took place on 30 August 2013. The memorandum of understanding signed at the IRRI headquarters on 26 February 2014.

Photos

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IRRI welcomes new head of research

Matthew Morell is new deputy director general for research at IRRI. As head of research, Matthew will provide strategic leadership and oversight for IRRI’s research and outreach programs on genetic diversity and gene discovery, varietal improvement, genetics, and biotechnology, crop environment sciences, crop management, grain quality, postharvest and mechanization, targeting and policy, and training. He will hold office at F.F. Hill Building.

Matthew led research as theme leader for 16 years at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Before coming to IRRI, he led “Future Grains and Plant Oil Production,” a thematic research initiative that pulled together multiple scientific disciplines for the development of novel high-value grains and oil seeds. This enabled him to access and make use of complex collaborating capacities, overcoming geographical challenges across research sites.

Matthew has strong experience in identifying, protecting, and managing intellectual property, as well as establishing a means for strong compliance with the requirements of gene technology regulations, genetic modification stewardship, and occupational health and safety legislation. He brings to IRRI decades of experience driven by a passion for scientific excellence, an understanding of private-public partnerships, a sound capacity for stakeholder engagement, a tested understanding of identifiable patent outcomes and protection of intellectual property, and people engagement and leadership skills.

More about Matthew

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Local residents get free medical checkup and counseling

IRRI’s Partnerships Office conducted a community health education and medical mission at Barangay Dila in Bay, Laguna, on 20 February. The monthly activity seeks to lower the risk of low-income residents of Bay and Los Baños developing common ailments and to contribute to their overall wellness and wellbeing.

The Civic Action team of physicians from the Army General Hospital, led by Major Mary Agnes Motril, M.D., provided free checkups and health counseling.

Free medicines and vitamins were also given out, courtesy of the Philippine Desk of the PO and the IRRI spouses’ club, Suhay. Gardenia, a major supplier of baked products in the Philippines, supported the activity by providing loaves of bread for the families of those who came for the checkup and counseling.


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Vietnam: Project on closing yield gaps assesses progress in first year

Rice scientists, extension specialists, and other key partners from six countries gathered on 18-21 February to discuss the progress and plans of the Closing Rice Yield Gaps in Asia with Reduced Environmental Footprint (CORIGAP) Project.

CORIGAP is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

“This meeting is important, as the CORIGAP Project aims to increase productivity through new technologies while diversifying sources of income,” said Le Hung Dung, leader of the Can Tho People’s Committee, in his welcome remarks.

“CORIGAP builds on the results over the past 16 years of the Irrigated Rice Research Consortium (IRRC), through which most countries involved increased their rice production,” said Carmen Thönnissen, donor representative and SDC senior advisor with the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. “The component technologies developed through the IRRC are now integrated through CORIGAP.”

“CORIGAP’s objectives are aligned closely with the mission of the Global Rice Science Partnership (GRiSP) of IRRI,” said Grant Singleton, CORIGAP coordinator. “We aim to reduce poverty, improve health, and reduce the environmental footprint of rice production through strong partnerships with national agricultural research and extension systems.”

Pham Van Du, deputy director general of the Department of Crop Production of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, gave a presentation on the VietGAP and Small Farmer-Large Field (SFLF) initiatives of Vietnam. Participants also visited farmers’ fields involved in SFLF and in the use of rice straw for mushroom production.

Key IRRI scientists and national partners from China, Indonesia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam presented about their activities and results for 2013, plans for 2014, and challenges and opportunities.

Presentations also covered research progress and plans on the development of a field calculator, communication, market chain issues, postharvest issues, environmental indicators, and learning alliances.

“As CORIGAP develops, we will see more country priorities come through,” said David Johnson, GRiSP Theme 3 leader and IRRI representative on the CORIGAP Advisory Committee, during the open discussion. “This is a great chance for a science-based approach to make better changes for the future.”

The meeting was hosted by the Can Tho People’s Committee and the Can Tho Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The international advisory committee of CORIGAP also attended the meeting.

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RIPPLE Magazine features cross-discipline partnership project

The 24th issue of RIPPLE features how an integrated, cross-discipline partnership, such as the Closing Rice Yield Gaps in Asia with Reduced Environmental Footprint (CORIGAP) Project, is essential in ensuring regional food security while promoting environmentally sustainable rice production. CORIGAP builds on the local country partnerships and technologies developed by the Irrigated Rice Research Consortium over the past 2 decades.

The cover story introduces CORIGAP’s activities, events, and their next steps in Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The magazine also features CORIGAP scientists Dr. Sarah Beebout, an IRRI soil chemist, Dr. Takahiro Sato, a postdoctoral fellow working on the development of a field calculator, and an invite from project  coordinator Grant Singleton to all interested parties who would like to be part of the project’s exciting journey.

The new issue of RIPPLE can be accessed at http://www.scribd.com/doc/207908809/Ripple-July-to-December-2013

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New project aims to speed up rice breeding

A new project has been launched at IRRI that aims to make breeding programs for irrigated rice much more efficient and thus enhance genetic gain.

The new Transforming Rice Breeding Efficiency (TRB) Project makes use of modern breeding tools and approaches and will focus on IRRI’s breeding ‘pipelines’ for irrigated rice. Its activities will cover South and Southeast Asia and East and Southern Africa to help secure the food and income of resource-poor farmers in these regions.

Members of the TRB Project core team, led by Eero Nissila, head of IRRI’s breeding division, launched the project in a meeting attended by several colleagues at the IRRI headquarters on 5 February 2014.

Bas Bouman, director of the Global Rice Science Partnership (GRiSP), said that “the project has good funding and a very short time frame to make rapid advances.”
The 5-year TRB project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and has as its key partners the national agricultural research systems, especially in Asia; NARS.

The members of the Project core team are Alice Laborte, Glenn Gregorio, Mike Thomson, Bert Collard, and Ed Redoña.

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