Special section: RICE AND MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

by the IRRI-led project Poverty Elimination Through Rice Research Assistance (PETRRA) in cooperation with the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute. The PETRRA fair attracted some 2,000 visitors each day to see for themselves the progress made by the 45 research-for-development subprojects under the innovative PETRRA umbrella. All PETRRA subprojects use rice research and extension as the entry point to spur rural development and improve the lives of rice growers and consumers alike. This reflects the conviction that research to help farmers grow rice more efficiently, profitably and sustainably is the essential first step toward achieving six of the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger: Most of the worlds poorest and least foodsecure people live in riceproducing Asia. Many are rice farmers and even more are slum-dwellers or landless farm laborers who buy their daily rice. Rice is so central to their lives that any solution to global poverty and hunger must include research that helps farmers earn a decent profit while growing rice that is affordable to consumers. Promote gender equality and empower women: Women traditionally shoulder many of the chores of rice farming and today are assuming additional responsibilities as their menfolk seek off-farm employment. Research that makes rice farming more efficient frees women to grow cash crops and independently pursue remunerative activities to support personal fulfillment and cover school fees for all of their children, boys and girls alike.

Millennium Development Goals DEPEND ON RICE RESEARCH

Reduce child mortality and improve maternal health: Because Asias poorest depend on rice for most of their calories and protein, many suffer dietary deficiencies of iron, zinc and vitamin A. Globally, hidden CAROLYN DEDOLPH hunger for these essential micronutrients afflicts more than half of humanity, especially women and young children. Making rice more nutritious will help protect those most vulnerable to hidden hunger. Ensure environmental sustainability: Rice occupies more farmland in Asia than any other food crop 60% or more in the poorest countries. Rice research that improves the productivity of existing fields boosts harvests in line with growth in the number of mouths to feed, without encroaching on forests and other natural areas. Research that optimizes farmers pesticide and fertilizer use improves their income as it protects the environment.

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CHRIS STOWERS (4)

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chieving most of the Millennium Development Goals spelled out by the United Nations 3 years ago hinges on policymakers recognizing the essential role rice plays in the lives and livelihoods of most of the worlds poor. A renewed emphasis on this reality has marked recent gatherings in international agricultural research. IRRIs parent organization, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), welcomed almost 1,000 policymakers, scientists and development specialists to the groups annual general meeting on 28-31 October in Nairobi, Kenya the only country to host the headquarters of two CGIAR research centers, the World Agroforestry Center and International Livestock Research

Institute. Much of the discussion at the CGIAR meeting focused on defining the achievements and challenges of the CGIAR research centers in terms of the Millennium Development Goals. People are discovering that the goals have practical value, said Mike Jackson, IRRIs director of program planning and coordination. They provide research organizations with a touchstone for assessing the relative merits of different projects in a tight funding environment. And they provide policymakers and funding agencies with a framework to guide their investments. Some 7 weeks before the CGIAR confab, an IRRI Board of Trustees meeting in Dhaka, Bangladesh, coincided with a 2-day communication fair sponsored

Achieve universal primary education: Asias poorest spend 20-40% of their income on rice. Helping farmers grow rice more efficiently means cheaper rice for consumers, higher income for producers, and more money for both to invest in their childrens education. More efficient rice farming techniques also lighten the labor burden on farm households, leaving children more time for their studies. ARIEL JAVELLANA

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CGIAR

Annual General Meeting 2003

Scientific Support Team award celebrates Filipinos role in sustainable development

distributing them to farmers, plant breeders and other scientists. We aim to protect traditional varieties of rice so that they can be used to help poor rice farmers throughout the world, said Ruaraidh Sackville Hamilton, head of the GRC. We are open to any nation, including those who do not deposit their traditional varieties with us, provided they agree not to infringe the sovereign rights of nations over their biodiversity. establishing and upgrading genetic resources facilities and conducting genebank and data-management training in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and the Philippines. Genebank Manager Flora de Guzman, who traveled to Nairobi to receive the award, said that IRRI has been actively conserving rice biodiversity for 4 decades, since the establishment of the genebank in 1962. Over the past decade, there have been significant changes and improvements to genebank facilities and operations, particularly in seed production and conservation, data management and research, said Ms. de Guzman. Since 1986, the genebank has distributed 250,000 seed samples, facilitating the free movement of germplasm among 96 countries. This includes repatriating 32,000 rice samples to 34 countries of origin. Restoring traditional rice varieties can increase farmers income and so advance Millennium Development Goals as dramatically demonstrated in the IRRI-led project Exploiting

ilipino researchers have won for the 3rd consecutive year the worlds most prestigious award for a scientific support team in publicly funded agricultural research. The award was announced on 27 October at the annual general meeting in Nairobi of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which each year presents the CGIAR Excellence in Science Awards. The winning team comprises 33 Filipino scientists working in the Genetic Resources Center (GRC) at IRRI. The researchers operate the GRC, which manages the International Rice Genebank, and play a central role in the centers achievement of significant scientific advances in the conservation and use of rice genetic resources. The team is responsible for storing, testing, multiplying, characterizing and documenting seed samples from the worlds most comprehensive collection of rice genetic resources 110,000 samples of traditional and modern varieties of cultivated rice, as well as wild species and

Reputation for excellence

The Filipino team has been instrumental in building the genebanks reputation for excellence. The recent external review of CGIAR genebank operations cited it as the best in the CGIAR system and a model for others to emulate. The team developed an online Manual of Operations that documents all daily management operations and is used by many national and regional genebanks as a guide and distance-learning tool. The GRC team has also supported national and regional genebanks by

MEETING CHALLENGES WITH ENERGY AND CHARISMA

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ANGELINE KAMBA with the Earth Institutes Jeffrey Sachs (left) and CGIAR Chairman Ian Johnson at the CGIAR annual general meeting in Nairobi.

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Rice Today January 2004

YUSUF WACHIRA / IMAGE HUNTERS (3)

wo of the most remarkable years of my life, said Angeline Kamba, summing up her term as chair of the IRRI Board of Trustees. IRRI faces some enormous challenges, not least of which is the urgent need to continue to develop reliable new sources of funding. This was one of the central issues during my time as chair, and Im pleased to say that some promising new strategies are being developed by the institute. Mrs. Kamba, IRRIs first female or African board chair, took over from Sjarifudin Baharsjah of Indonesia in January 2002. She was scheduled to hand over to the incoming chair, Keijiro Otsuka, a respected Japanese agricultural economist, at the end of December. As someone with no direct connection to rice or rice research, I had some concerns about what I could contribute to an institute like IRRI, she recalled. Now, at the end of my term, Im pleased at what I and my fellow

THE AWARD-WINNING Genetic Resources Center support team: (left to right, 1st row) Amita Juliano, Nelia Resurreccion, Emerlinda Hernandez, Teresita Santos, Adelaida Alcantara, Ma. Elizabeth Naredo, Flora de Guzman, Ma. Socorro Almazan, Digna Salisi and Renato Reao; (2nd row) Alicia Lapis, Imelda Boncajes, Jacqueline Manuel, Isabelita de Mesa, Yolanda Malatag, Veronica Mangubat, Minerva Eloria, Lydia Angeles, Minerva Macatangay, Maridee Pontipedra, Wilma Lumaybay, Gregorio Mercado and Florencio Villegas; (3rd row) Bernardo Mercado, Arnold Gonzales, Noel Banzuela, Bernardino Almazan, Felix Llanes, Vicente Arcillas, Melencio Lalap, Romulo Quilantang and Remegio Aguilar (not pictured, Mario Rodriguez). The other winners (inset) in Nairobi.

Biodiversity for Sustainable Pest Management, which netted last years support team award. The research saw high-value but diseasesusceptible traditional rice varieties interplanted with disease-resistant hybrids to produce, with reduced spraying of fungicide, a healthy crop worth nearly US$281 more per hectare than a crop of hybrids alone. Access to the traditional varieties stored by the GRC was pivotal to the projects success. Genetic resources also support IRRIs hybrid rice breeding team, which won the award in 2001.

Other winners
Other winners this year included Abdul Mujeeb Kazi of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, who was named Outstanding Scientist for generating and making available new genetic diversity for wheat improvement. Honored as Promising Young Scientist was Jonathan Crouch, the global theme leader for biotechnology at the International Center for Research in the Semi-Arid Tropics, who led the effort to develop the upstream biotechnology and genetic enhancement program at the center and was instrumental in establishing its Applied Genomics Laboratory. Two papers received the Outstanding Scientific Article award. Dietary aflatoxin exposure and

impaired growth in young children from Benin and Togo was published in 2002 in the British Medical Journal, Vol. 325. The co-authors are three researchers at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture: K. Cardwell, A. Hounsa and S. Egal, along with Y.Y. Gong, P.C. Turner and C.P. Wild of the University of Leeds, and A.J. Hall of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The study documented a striking association between malnutrition in children and their exposure to aflatoxin, thus revealing the need to address aflatoxin contamination in stored food grains. The prize-sharing paper African pastoralism: Genetic imprints of origins and migrations was published in 2002 in Science, Vol. 296, by Oliver Hanotte, Joel W. Ochieng, Yasmin Verjee and J. Edward O. Rege of the International Livestock Research Institute, and Daniel G. Bradley and Emmeline W. Hill of the Smurfit Institute at Trinity College in Ireland. The first continent-wide study of the genetic diversity of cattle in Africa, the paper reports 7 years research in characterizing, conserving and using indigenous animal genetic resources for the benefit of Africas poor. The Outstanding Partnership award recognized the Vitamin A for Africa (VITAA) Program, coordinated by the International Potato Center, for its work with 44 local and international development organizations to
Rice Today January 2004

implement the program in seven African countries. VITAA is a research and public health initiative to combat widespread vitamin A deficiency by promoting new varieties of orangefleshed sweet potatoes. The winner of the award for Outstanding Journalism was Indian journalist Pallava Bagla for his article Drought exposes cracks in Indias monsoon model, published in 2002 in the prestigious journal Science, and for a body of scientific articles published in mainstream media and reputed journals. M.J. Williams of the WorldFish Center received the Outstanding Communications award for the Fish for All Campaign, which raised awareness of the ways fish contribute to the food needs of 1 billion of the worlds poor, provide livelihoods to 120 million low-income wage earners, and are challenged by a degrading natural resource base.

CGIAR CHAIRMAN Ian Johnson arrives at the meeting flanked by Kenyan Vice President Moody Awori (left) and Agriculture Minister Kipruto Arap Kirwa.

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board members have been able to achieve with the energetic support of IRRI management, for which I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude. IRRI Director General Ronald P. Cantrell praised Mrs. Kambas enormous contribution to the institute during what has been a challenging period. Clearly the most painful and difficult experience during her term, he said, was the retrenchment in 2002, which saw the institute lose 170 staff because of a funding downturn. Thanks to her leadership and steady hand, the institute was able to emerge stronger and with a brighter future. The energetic and charismatic Mrs. Kamba brought to the job a wealth of experience. A librarian by training, she has served the government of Zimbabwe as public service commissioner, director of the National Archives (which led to a term as vice president of the International Council on Archives), and Zimbabwean representative (and later chair) of the Inter-governmental Council for the General Information Program of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In the international arena, she has served on the boards of CAB he IRRI-led project Poverty Elimination International and the journal Information Development. Through Rice Research Assistance (PETRRA) Mrs. Kamba played a key role at many IRRI-related and Bangladesh Rice Research Institute jointly events. One of the highlights for me was the International organized a 2-day communication fair at the Rice Congress in Beijing in September 2002, which Chinese Sheraton Hotel in Dhaka on 10-11 September. The President Jiang Zemin graciously opened, she recalled. This event coincided with a meeting of the IRRI Board of confirmed the enormous respect IRRI is privileged to enjoy Trustees in Dhaka, its first-ever meeting in Bangladesh. among the rice-producing nations of the world. The objective of the fair was to publicize the Mrs. Kambas swan song representing IRRI was at portfolio of ongoing research, experiences and results the annual general meeting of the Consultative Group on of the PETRRA project (www.petrra-irri.org), a International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in Nairobi at research-for-development project funded by the United the end of October. It pleased me greatly that the CGIAR Kingdoms Department for International Development. was finally able to hold one of its annual get-togethers in Since its launch in 1999, PETRRA has explicitly aimed Africa, she said, and that I could participate as an IRRI to contribute to Millennium Development Goals by representative. halving extreme poverty by 2015. Mrs. Kamba said that her one regret was leaving IRRI The fair displayed progress to date on the 45 before the events marking International Year of Rice 2004. subprojects operating under the PETRRA umbrella. As a cultural activist, I hope that there will be an It also provided an opportunity for stakeholders extensive cultural component in the events marking the PRIME MINISTER Begum Khaleda Zia received IRRI Board Chair Angeline Kamba during the September International Year of Rice, board meeting in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Viewing an experimental field (top left, from left) are Adilshe added, referring to her son Serrp, board member; Keijiro Otsuka, incoming board chair; Mahabub Hossain, Social work with the Southern Sciences Division head; and Mike Jackson, director for program planning and development. Cutting the ribbon at the PETRRA Communication Fair (above right) is Minister African Association for for Agriculture M.K. Anwar, flanked by IRRI Director General Ronald P. Cantrell Research into Culture and (left) and State Minister for Agriculture Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir. Development, Harare Dr. Cantrell and Minister Anwar (bottom far right) huddle. (Zimbabwe) International Farmers (bottom right) learn about seed health. Festival of the Arts, and UN/UNESCO World Commission on Culture and Development. I understand very well that rice is more than just food in Asia its a way of life.
DRIK (4)

Sustainable development in Dhaka

engaged in PETRRA subprojects to touch base with each other and see how their subprojects fit into the larger picture of sustainable rural development and achieving Millennium Development Goals. Donors and prospective donors, meanwhile, had a chance to learn more about this innovative and competitive approach to organizing and delivering development aid. Finally, the fair was an opportunity to emphasize the central role agriculture plays as an engine of poverty reduction. The fair featured 47 stalls presenting research-inprogress on technology development, dissemination pathways and methods, and policy. Displayers included PETRRA and its subprojects, the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation, Bangladesh Rice Foundation, and Forum for Information Dissemination on Agriculture. Some 80 farmers, male and female, were available alongside researchers in the stalls to discuss their experiences. The estimated 4,000 people attending the fair included students, donor representatives, civil servants, members of nongovernmental organizations, development workers, agricultural scientists, journalists, farmers and housewives. Presiding at the opening ceremony, which attracted some 500 guests to the Sheraton ballroom, was M.K. Anwar, minister for agriculture of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh. In his speech, Mr. Anwar emphasized the need to develop an agricultural marketing system and pursue crop biotechnology. Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, member of Parliament and state minister for agriculture, also spoke, reporting that the government had lowered bank interest rates for investments in agriculture. Speaking for IRRI were Board Chair Angeline Kamba and Director General Ronald P. Cantrell, who stressed that ensuring a balanced diet for Asian rice consumers and profitability for Asian farmers meant growing more rice on less land so that farmers could plant other crops. Other speakers included Agriculture Secretary Ayub Quadri and Fazle Hasan Abed, the distinguished founder of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee and IRRI board member. A seminar on PETRRA and the Poor took place in the afternoon of the launch day, followed the next day by a seminar on Challenges for Communication of Agricultural Research Results. Panelists emphasized crop diversification and marketing, as well as the dissemination to farmers of information on new research and technologies. They also noted that missing links between scientists and breeders on the one hand, and the farming community on the other, could be bridged by strengthening agricultural extension and information services and by using print and electronic media.

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