4/14/2008 1:41:41 PM作者: weili 时间: 2008-11-5 22:08 CIMMYT grew out of a pilot program in Mexico in 1943, sponsored by the Government of Mexico and the Rockefeller Foundation. The world had seen what expertise in plant breeding had accomplished for the USA in the wake of widespread crop failure, hunger, and poverty during the Great Depression. Could similar expertise benefit Mexico and other nations?
The project developed into an innovative, sustained collaboration with Mexican and international researchers. It established international networks to test experimental varieties. One of its researchers, Norman Borlaug, developed shorter wheat varieties that put more energy into grain production and responded better to fertilizer than older varieties. By the late 1950s, Mexico was self-sufficient in wheat production. Mexico’s success inspired project researchers to become fierce and effective advocates for the Mexican innovation model in other countries. In 1966, having survived one poor harvest but facing another, India took the extraordinary step of importing 18,000 tons of wheat seed from Mexico. The first evidence of success was the Indian wheat harvest of 16.5 million tons in 1968, compared with 11.3 million tons in 1967. Pakistan also began importing Mexican wheats. These two countries doubled wheat production between 1966 and 1971. The Green Revolution—which had by now extended to rice—had begun.
The social and economic achievements of the Green Revolution were recognized worldwide when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Norman Borlaug in 1970. The following year, a small cadre of development organizations, national sponsors, and private foundations organized the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to spread the impact of research to more crops and nations. CIMMYT was one of the first international research centers to be supported through the CGIAR.作者: weili 时间: 2008-11-5 23:00 1970年诺贝尔和平奖得主
蓋茲幫忙轉移世人的注意力，去正視非洲大陸的疾病與根除貧窮的問題。為了表揚他所做的努力，去年伊莉莎白女王冊封他為爵士。2006年五月，他被頒予「西班牙諾貝爾獎」（Spanish Nobel Prize，又稱「阿斯圖里亞斯王子國際合作獎」【the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation】）。此外，蓋茲伉儷還被《時代雜誌》（Time）選為2005年度風雲人物（Person of the Year）。
A central figure in the "green revolution", Norman Ernest Borlaug (March 25, 1914- ) was born on a farm near Cresco, Iowa, to Henry and Clara Borlaug. For the past twenty-seven years he has collaborated with Mexican scientists on problems of wheat improvement; for the last ten or so of those years he has also collaborated with scientists from other parts of the world, especially from India and Pakistan, in adapting the new wheats to new lands and in gaining acceptance for their production. An eclectic, pragmatic, goal-oriented scientist, he accepts and discards methods or results in a constant search for more fruitful and effective ones, while at the same time avoiding the pursuit of what he calls "academic butterflies". A vigorous man who can perform prodigies of manual labor in the fields, he brings to his work the body and competitive spirit of the trained athlete, which indeed he was in his high school and college days.
After completing his primary and secondary education in Cresco, Borlaug enrolled in the University of Minnesota where he studied forestry. Immediately before and immediately after receiving his Bachelor of Science degree in 1937, he worked for the U.S. Forestry Service at stations in Massachusetts and Idaho. Returning to the University of Minnesota to study plant pathology, he received the master's degree in 1939 and the doctorate in 1942.
From 1942 to 1944, he was a microbiologist on the staff of the du Pont de Nemours Foundation where he was in charge of research on industrial and agricultural bactericides, fungicides, and preservatives.
In 1944 he accepted an appointment as geneticist and plant pathologist assigned the task of organizing and directing the Cooperative Wheat Research and Production Program in Mexico. This program, a joint undertaking by the Mexican government and the Rockefeller Foundation, involved scientific research in genetics, plant breeding, plant pathology, entomology, agronomy, soil science, and cereal technology. Within twenty years he was spectacularly successful in finding a high-yielding short-strawed, disease-resistant wheat.
To his scientific goal he soon added that of the practical humanitarian: arranging to put the new cereal strains into extensive production in order to feed the hungry people of the world - and thus providing, as he says, "a temporary success in man's war against hunger and deprivation," a breathing space in which to deal with the "Population Monster" and the subsequent environmental and social ills that too often lead to conflict between men and between nations. Statistics on the vast acreage planted with the new wheat and on the revolutionary yields harvested in Mexico, India, and Pakistan are given in the presentation speech by Mrs. Lionaes and in the Nobel lecture by Dr. Borlaug. Well advanced, also, is the use of the new wheat in six Latin American countries, six in the Near and Middle East, several in Africa.
When the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations in cooperation with the Mexican government established the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), an autonomous international research training institute having an international board of trustees and staff, Dr. Borlaug was made director of its International Wheat Improvement Program. In this capacity he has been able to realize more fully a third objective, that of training young scientists in research and production methods. From his earliest days in Mexico he has, to be sure, carried on an intern program, but with the establishment of the Center, he has been able to reach out internationally. In the last seven years some 1940 young scientists from sixteen or so countries (the figures constantly move upward) have studied and worked at the Center.
Dr. Borlaug is presently participating in extensive experimentation with triticale, a man-made species of grain derived from a cross between wheat rye that shows promise of being superior to either wheat or rye in productivity and nutritional quality.
In addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Borlaug has received extensive recognition from universities and organizations in six countries: Canada, India, Mexico, Norway, Pakistan, the United States. In 1968 he received an especially satisfying tribute when the people of Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, Mexico, in whose area he did some of his first experimenting, named a street in his honor.
Biographical information
Dr. Chandler was born on June 22, 1907, in Ohio, grew up in Maine, and earned a 1934 Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. He died on March 23, 1999, at the age of 91. In a scientific and administrative career that spanned seventy years, he inspired scores of young and talented scientists to work for the betterment of human nutrition and improved rural income. Many of his protégés advanced to become leaders in agricultural research. Dr. Chandler was remembered by fellow World Food Prize Laureate Dr. M.S. Swaminathan as “a scientist of vision and conviction, warmth and wisdom, and of great inner strength. The impact of his leadership and dynamism was widely felt in Asia within a short period.”
Academic and research career
Originally a professor of forest soils at Cornell University, Dr. Chandler was in 1946 named director of agricultural research at the University of New Hampshire and from 1950 to 1954 served as that institution’s president. During that time he also studied soils in Mexico, where from 1954 to 1958 he directed research for the Rockefeller Foundation.
Founding Director of IRRI
By the late 1950s, the population of Asia was expanding rapidly and the outlook for feeding the increasing number of people was bleak. Many experts, predicting that the region would outgrow its food production capacities by 1975, warned of chronic, widespread famine. This was the situation when Dr. Chandler became the founding director of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños, the Philippines.
His experience in science and administration made him a natural choice to initiate the IRRI program in 1959, which he and his wife, Sunny, did with little more than a typewriter in a Manila hotel room.
From the outset, Dr. Chandler knew that the production of rice, the primary staple for more than four-fifths of Asia's population, would play a paramount role in curtailing hunger. To keep pace with the growing population, however, rice production had to increase by more than five million tons annually.
Dr. Chandler brought together a staff of administrators and attracted top scientists from around the globe, unified in their focus on the agricultural needs of the developing world. Concentrating on collecting existing Asian rice breeds and genetically improving them, they produced varieties specially developed to have double and triple the yield potential of traditional rice plants. As early as 1963, IRRI researcher and 1996 World Food Prize Laureate Henry Beachell had already identified the plants that would become the IR8 strain lauded as “miracle rice.” These and other varieties developed at IRRI brought a 66% increase in rice production in Asia, while the population rose 47%. Today, the new rice varieties are grown on 500,000 km² across the continent.
In reality, the rapid advances in rice production that Dr. Chandler and his eminent staff made were not a miracle, but the product of hard work, determination, and years of research. The success of Dr. Chandler's work with IRRI spurred the development of an international network of agricultural research centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Sixteen centers are currently located on nearly every continent, each focusing on particular crops, livestock, or problems in food production.
After guiding IRRI through its first decade, Dr. Chandler became the founding director of the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC) in Taiwan in 1972. Under his leadership, AVRDC developed vegetable varieties for the tropics, including a heat-tolerant tomato with a yield of 20 tons per hectare. For more than 30 years, AVRDC varieties have enriched the diets of millions of people, especially women and children suffering from a lack of micronutrients, and the center maintains Dr. Chandler’s founding mission in its outreach activities across Asia and Africa and in Central America.
After retiring from full-time work in 1975, Dr. Chandler continued his mission through consultant assignments with the Near East Foundation, the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the World Bank. He received the Presidential End Hunger Award in 1986, which cited his "continued, demonstrated vision, initiative and leadership in the effort to achieve a world without hunger."
Honors and recognition
In 1966, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research honored Dr. Chandler’s contribution to IRRI’s achievements, stating, "His own personal qualities as a critical scientist and a dynamic leader have been primarily responsible for the emergence of the International Rice Research Institute as the finest rice research center in the world...His contributions therefore lie not only in the practical application of science for human welfare, but in the evolution of a pattern of research administration conducive to science becoming an instrument of social progress in the developing nations." Dr. S.K. DeDatta, an IRRI agronomist from 1964 to 1991, credited Dr. Chandler for his commitment to and leadership in staving off hunger in Asia, saying “[the researchers’] brains were the only limitations at IRRI in the early days.”
The countries that most immediately and directly benefited from Dr. Chandler’s vision were quick to laud his efforts. He was honored with India’s Gold Medal Award in 1966, Pakistan’s Sitara-I-Imtiaz Award in 1968, Indonesia’s Star of Merit and the Philippines’ Golden Heart Award in 1972, and China’s Order of the Brilliant Star in 1975.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Chandler"作者: weili 时间: 2008-11-11 12:43 Dr. Dyno Keatinge, the Center's new Director General, assumes duty:
Maintaining the "pro-poor" focus and fostering partnerships
"Prosperity for the poor and health for all" through better and safer vegetables. With this claim Dr. Dyno Keatinge assumed his duties as Director General of AVRDC - The World Vegetable Center on 14 April 2008. Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian welcomed Dr. Keatinge to the Center's headquarters and spoke about the Center's expanded role from a distinctive Asian research institute to one with a global portfolio and worldwide recognition.
Dr. Keatinge brings a wealth of experience in international agricultural research and development to the post of Director General. He has held senior management positions with the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in Syria and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria. Since 2002 he has served as Deputy Director General - Research at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in India.
He received his Ph.D in Agronomy/Crop Physiology from Queen's University, Belfast, UK in 1978. From 1993 to 1999, he was Professor of Agricultural Systems and Management at the University of Reading, UK.
"There is an exciting future ahead for the World Vegetable Center," Dr. Keatinge said. "The Center is poised to make a significant contribution to the Millennium Development Goals over the next decade. Its efforts will be felt by the poor in farming communities throughout sub-Saharan Africa and in other parts of the developing world."
His vision for the Center includes fostering partnerships with organizations of all sizes across the research-to-development continuum, and maintaining a "pro-poor" focus to improve nutrition, food safety and job creation.
Dr. Keatinge replaces outgoing Director General Dr. Thomas A. Lumpkin, who will join the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico.
"Prosperity for the poor and health for all" through better and safer vegetables. With this claim Dr. Dyno Keatinge assumed his duties as Director General of AVRDC - The World Vegetable Center on 14 April 2008. Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian welcomed Dr. Keatinge to the Center's headquarters and spoke about the Center's expanded role from a distinctive Asian research institute to one with a global portfolio and worldwide recognition.
AVRDC was confirmed as AVRDC - The World Vegetable Center in a ceremony on 14 April 2008. At the unveiling ceremony, Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian expressed his congratulations to Dr. Keatinge: "I am confident that under Dr. Keatinge's leadership the Center will successfully realize its aim to benefit nations across the globe."
Words of commendation went also to outgoing Director General Dr. Thomas Lumpkin., whose vision and commitment helped the Center make the transition from a predominantly Asia-focused research center to an institute with a global reputation for excellence in agricultural research and development.
