Chronicle Online e-News
New rice course in Philippines attracts host of CU students and is
co-taught by Professor Susan McCouch
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/June07/IRRI.course.sl.
html
June 20, 2007
Many recent scientific breakthroughs -- such as the sequencing of the
rice genome in 2004 -- have triggered significant advances in how to
help poor farmers overcome such age-old problems as drought, flooding
and high levels of salinity. Yet many of the young researchers in
developed nations who worked on these breakthroughs are unaware of
how their work can impact poor nations and are far removed from the
problems poor farmers may face in the field.
In one of the first attempts to encourage some of the world's
brightest young scientists to consider careers helping developing
nations, a new three-week course, Rice: Research to Production, was
launched in May at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)
in the Philippines, the world's leading rice research and training
center. The inaugural class of 26 students from 12 nations included
eight Cornell students, and one of the course's leaders is Susan
McCouch, Cornell professor of plant breeding and genetics.
"Many young scientists working in developed nations are increasingly
isolated from the very people in poorer nations who could really
benefit from their work," said McCouch. "We want to change this and
encourage good young scientists wherever they are to think of
themselves as a new generation of revolutionaries -- taking the
latest scientific knowledge and using it to improve the lives of the
world's poor."
The course, which is sponsored by the National Science Foundation,
the United Kingdom's Gatsby Foundation and IRRI for three years,
included 13 students from rice-growing countries in Asia and Africa.
"Until [this program], there was no major support at all for young
scientists from advanced laboratories in the West who wanted to work
or do their research in poor, developing nations," McCouch said. "The
opportunities were all in the other direction. Our intention is to
help reverse the brain drain and reinvigorate interdisciplinary
teamwork in the developing world."
Course participants learned not only the basics of how rice is sown,
cultivated and harvested but also about rice breeding and fertilizer
management.
"Considering the ongoing revolutions in fields such as molecular
biology and bioinformatics, this is an incredibly exciting time to
work in agricultural research, because we are finally gaining the
knowledge we need to solve some of the developing world's most
intractable and difficult problems," said Robert S. Zeigler, IRRI's
director general. "What we have to do now is make sure the young
scientists of the world are aware of the unprecedented -- almost
historic -- opportunity they have to really make a difference in the
lives of the poor."
"The course made me better appreciate the importance of applied
agriculture," said Megan O'Rourke, a 27-year-old mother of three
earning a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell,
adding that this was her first time working in a developing nation.
"It has reminded me that I began studying agriculture because of its
essential place in supporting lives and societies."
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