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PEOPLERecognizedFazle Hasan Abed, former IRRIBoard of Trustees member (2001-06), was conferred knighthood by HRHCharles, the Prince of Wales, on behalfof Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, inFebruary. Hailing from Bangladesh,Sir Fazle is the founder (in 1973) andchairperson of BRAC (first called theBangladesh Rehabilitation AssistanceCommittee and later the BangladeshRural Advancement Committee), a fastgrowingdevelopment organization.Florencia Palis, IRRI scientist andagricultural anthropologist, won the BestPoster Award during the InternationalMeeting on Health and Environment:Challenges for the Future held at theNational Institute of Health in Rome, Italy,in December 2009. Her poster showcasedher research on the effects of pesticideexposure on the health of Filipino farmers,done in collaboration with Dr. SatishKedia, a medical anthropologist from theUniversity of Memphis, USA.K.L. Heong, IRRI senior scientistand integrated pest managementspecialist, was elected as a fellow of theWorld Academy of Art and Science, inrecognition of his accomplishments inthe natural and social sciences.IRRI wins CGIAR scienceawardsThe International Rice ResearchInstitute (IRRI) won two of sevenawards conferred by the ConsultativeGroup on International AgriculturalResearch (CGIAR) at the GlobalConference on Agricultural Research forDevelopment, in Montpellier, France, 29March 2010.Winning the Award for OutstandingScientific Article is “Soil Carbonand Nitrogen Changes in Long-TermContinuous Lowland Rice Cropping,”IRRI’s study, which was publishedin 2008 in the Soil Science Society ofAmerica Journal [72(3):798-807]. Basedon analysis of soil samples collected over15 years from four experiments begunduring the 1960s, Roland Buresh, IRRIsenior soil scientist, and three colleagues(Mirasol Pampolino and EufrocinoLaureles of IRRI and HermenegildoGines of the Philippine Rice ResearchInstitute) determined that continuous ricemonoculture on submergedsoils consistently maintainedor actually increased soilorganic matter.And, the Award forOutstanding ScientificSupport Team goes toIRRI’s Irrigated RiceBreeding Team, whichis under the leadershipof Parminder Virk,senior plant breeder, andis composed of AntonioEvangelista, Mario Garcia,Alvaro Pamplona, Danny Balagtas,Nestor Ramos, Arsenio Morales,Benito Romena, Macario Perez,Vitaliano Lopena, Virgilio Angeles,Elma Nicolas, and Nelie Delos Reyes.The team is responsible for maintaininga continuous supply of new rice varietiesfor irrigated production.New BOT membersThree new members of the IRRI Boardof Trustees assumed their posts inJanuary 2010: P. Stephen Baenziger,Zhai Huqu, and Joyce Kikafunda.They replaced Ronald Phillips, RuthOniang’o, and Baowen Zhang, whocompleted their terms last year.Dr. Baenziger is the EugeneW. Price Distinguished Professor inthe Department of Agronomy andHorticulture at the University ofNebraska, where he has worked for morethan 20 years. He earned his BS degreein biochemical sciences from HarvardUniversity and his MS and PhD in plantbreeding and genetics from PurdueUniversity. He worked for the UnitedStates Department of Agriculture for 8years, particularly focusing on wheat andbarley germplasm enhancement. Then hespent 3 years with Monsanto Corporationand worked on wheat plant growthregulators and biotechnology.Prof. Zhai is president of the ChineseAcademy of Agricultural Sciences andformer president of Nanjing AgriculturalUniversity. He greatly contributed toquantitative genetics and crop breedingresearch, research on hybrid rice,capacity building for crop breedingprograms, and science innovation. Heholds a PhD in plant genetics from theUniversity of Birmingham in the U.K.IRRI'S IRRIGATED rice breeding team.Prof. Kikafunda is associateprofessor in the Department of FoodScience and Technology, MakerereUniversity, in Kampala, Uganda. Sheearned her MS degree in food scienceand technology from the University ofSaskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada; andher PhD in food science and nutritionfrom the University of Reading in theU.K. Her research areas include childnutrition, food fortification, and foodconsumption patterns.Five new principal scientistsIRRI appointed five new principalscientists in January: Roland Buresh,Jagdish Ladha, Hei Leung, DavidMackill, and To Phuc Tuong. AtIRRI, principal scientists are regardedas foremost experts in their fields—recognized for their contributions thathave made great impacts on research.New staffIRRI welcomed new internationallyrecruited staff Corinta Guerta,Chengzhi Liang, Andrew Nelson,Valerien Pede, Alfred Schmidley, andChengzhi Liang; new visiting researchfellows Jong-Hee Lee, Sang-Bok Lee,Alagarswamy Senthil, and Syed Jabbar;new postdoctoral fellows AndrewCal, Murali Krishna Gumma, ImpaSomayanda, Srinivasachary, VivekThakur, Changrong Ye, Wei Zhou,Huaiyu Wang, and Govinda Rizal;collaborative research assistant BjoernOle Sander; collaborative researchfellow Isaac Kofi Bimpong; visitor andcollaborator Mark Fabreag; intern KatieNelson; and consultants Julian Hibberd,David Paige, and Terry Jacobsen.8 Rice Today April-June 2010
PEOPLETR AINING COURSES AT IRRIIntroduction to R: Data Manipulation and Statistical AnalysisIRRI Training Center, Los Baños, Philippines26-30 April 2010This course introduces the participants to the basics of the R StatisticalComputing Environment under Windows. The R Statistics ComputingEnvironment is a free, open-source software. It consists of a setof core modules that make up the R distribution, as well as more than500 contributed packages from various sources. R is designed in acomputer language that requires participants to work mainly with acommand-line interface, using the R language.The course will provide lectures and hands-on practical exercises.Participants must be computer proficient and must be familiar withbasic statistical methods, including hypothesis testing, analysis ofvariance and regression, and correlation analysis; or, they should haveat least attended the Basic Experimental Designs and Data Analysiscourse.Introduction to Gene Mapping: Linkage and Association MappingIRRI Training Center, Los Baños, Philippines17-21 May 2010This course introduces the participants to the basics of gene mappingusing software packages such as R/qtl, R/GenABEL, R/genetics, R/LDheatmap,and R/popgen. The training course will provide lectures andhands-on practical exercises. Participants must be computer proficientand have basic knowledge in genetics. They must also be familiarwith R data manipulation or should have at least attended the firsttwo days of the Introduction to R: Data Manipulation and StatisticalAnalysis course.Rice: Research to ProductionIRRI Training Center, Los Baños, Philippines17 May-4 June 2010This course aims to create a new generation of plant scientists thatare well networked in the international community and understand theimportance of innovative plant science in tackling global problems.Topics include an understanding of the basics of rice production inAsia; familiarity with the germplasm collection at IRRI and currentissues related to germplasm exchange and intellectual property; anappreciation of the research issues of IRRI and its developing partners;hands-on skills relating to rice breeding, molecular genetics, andgenomics; an understanding of how to structure effective internationalcollaboration; and a plan and personal contacts to work effectively aspart of the international research community in the future.ILAC-IRRI Group Facilitation Skills for ParticipatoryDecision-MakingIRRI Training Center, Los Baños, Philippines8-11 June 2010This workshop aims to strengthen students’ capacity to facilitatemeetings, teams, and group decision-making processes. Its hands-onpractical approach will enable the participants to immediately applywhat they have learned to their day-to-day work. Topics include whatfacilitation is and why it is important; how to facilitate meetings andteams; how to manage conflicts and disagreements; and how to buildconsensus for decision-making. Professionals involved in participatoryprojects, networks, or meetings are encouraged to attend. Participantsmust have an excellent command of the English language.For more details, contact Dr. Noel Magor, head, IRRI Training Center(IRRITraining@cgiar.org) or see www.training.irri.org.NEW BOOK http://books.irri.orgContested Waterscapes in the Mekong Region: Hydropower, Livelihoods, and GovernanceReviewed by: Randy Barker,Edited by: François Molle, Tira Foran, and Mira KäkönenPublished by: London and Sterling, Virginia: Earthscan, 2009.This book, Contested Waterscapes inthe Mekong Region, makes very clearthat demand is growing for water fornonagricultural uses—hydropower, urbanconsumption, and industry. Agriculture, forwhich approximately 80% of water is diverted,will thus receive less and less water in thefuture. Some observers are concerned aboutthe prospects for global warming and themelting of the Himalayan glaciers. But, evenwithout this problem, we will have to movefrom development to management of waterresources. Most Asian governments have notrealized the need for this change, let aloneconsidered how it is to be accomplished.It is against this backdrop that this bookhas been written. It is a product of M-Power orThe Mekong Program on Water Environmentand Resilience, www.mpowernet.org—a network of “people plecommitted to improvinglocal, national, and regionalgovernance in Cambodia, a,China, Laos, Myanmar,Thailand, and Vietnam.”The fact that not just oneor two countries but sixuse the water of theMekong is what makesthe Mekong region unique. And,the region’s waters are contested not onlyamong countries but also within countries—among agencies and organizations withparticular interests in one of the multiple usesof water such as for irrigation, hydropower,urban consumption, and the environment.These agencies do nottypically talk to one another.This book containsa great deal of informationon the politics of damdevelopment for bothhydropower and irrigation. And,it has a useful set of maps andtables thatlocates and defines bothcompletedand planned dam projects.Even a reader well versed in variousaspects of water resource developmentand management will find this book avaluable reference.Dr. Barker’s full review can be foundonline at http://snipurl.com/uqqcf and moreinformation about the book is at http://snipurl.com/v5qxp.Rice Today April-June 20109
Page 1 and 2: www.irri.orgWELCOME ALUMNIIRRI Home
Page 3 and 4: contentsEDITORIAL .................
Page 5 and 6: Hidden Treasure*The Chinese New Yea
Page 7: NEWS http://ricenews.irri.org 7and
Page 11 and 12: Bearish? Where is the economy going
Page 13 and 14: ainRICEGROWERS' ASSOCIATION OF AUST
Page 15 and 16: COLEAMBALLY RICE farmer Lynne Stuck
Page 20 and 21: RACHELLE WARD, a Yanco cereal chemi
Page 22 and 23: JOHN LACY, industry leader (rice fa
Page 24 and 25: Isagani Serrano24 Rice Today April-
Page 26 and 27: Mayon volcanoMAYON REVISITED:Courag
Page 28 and 29: Ketsana, which struck on 26 Septemb
Page 30 and 31: MAPSMapping genebank colThe genetic
Page 32 and 33: R. RAMANTODAY, INDIGENOUS African r
Page 34 and 35: Made for theTROPICSCHRIS QUINTANA (
Page 36 and 37: Operation20/20:Theclearpathtoasusta
Page 38 and 39: IRRI ARCHIVEIN 1990, Dr. McCouch an
Page 40 and 41: IRRI welcomesits alumni to a homeco
Page 42 and 43: COUNTRY HIGHLIGHT:IRRI in ThailandC
Page 44 and 45: RICE FACTSGlobal rice crisis hurts
Page 46 and 47: grain of truthLearning lessons from
Page 48: 8-12 November 2010Vietnam National

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