Thomas Lumpkin and S. Ayyappan at BISA launch
Thomas Lumpkin (left), CIMMYT Director General, chats with S. Ayyappan, Secretary of the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE) of the Ministry of Agriculture of India and Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), at the official launch of the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), held in New Delhi, India on 5 October 2011.
BISA will be a new, state-of-the-art, international agricultural research and development center, based in India and managed by CIMMYT. It will boost agricultural productivity by adapting wheat and maize varieties able to thrive despite the challenges of climate change, natural resource scarcity, diverse ecosystems, and increasing market demand. It will deliver elite wheat and maize germplasm that is high-yielding and robust—able to withstand drought, heat, diseases—and meets requirements for diversified cropping rotations and grain quality, and make it accessible to small seed companies so that they can offer quality, affordable seed to smallholder farmers. It will provide support in the use of modern biotechnology and bioinformatics tools and supply effective and profitable technologies and crop varieties for conservation and precision agriculture. BISA will have centers in three states, Punjab, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh, each of which contains varied agro-ecological zones allowing for testing of a variety of maize and wheat cultivars suited to the equally varied environments of South Asia.
Ayyappan opened the launch ceremony with a welcome address that was followed by speeches from Ramkrishna Kusmaria, Agriculture Minister of Madhya Pradesh, S. Sucha Singh Langah, Agriculture Minister of Punjab, and Sharad Pawar, the Union Minister for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries of India. Lumpkin delivered the closing remarks, saying “CIMMYT has been in India for 50 years. It’s time we laid down some roots.”
In addition to CIMMYT-India staff, the CIMMYT management committee, and its Board of Trustees, the ceremony was attended by representatives from CIMMYT’s sister institutions ILRI, IRRI, and Bioversity, as well as from the Allan Mustard Institute of the US Department of Agriculture and the private sector. The event was closed by a dinner and a speech by the Board of Trustees Chair, Sara Boettiger.
Photo credit: CIMMYT.
For more information about the launch, see CIMMYT's website at: www.cimmyt.org/en/front-page-tems/news2011/1166-new-borla....
For an overview of BISA, see: www.cimmyt.org/ru/about-us/partnerships/countries/doc_vie....
Thomas Lumpkin and S. Ayyappan at BISA launch
Thomas Lumpkin (left), CIMMYT Director General, chats with S. Ayyappan, Secretary of the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE) of the Ministry of Agriculture of India and Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), at the official launch of the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), held in New Delhi, India on 5 October 2011.
BISA will be a new, state-of-the-art, international agricultural research and development center, based in India and managed by CIMMYT. It will boost agricultural productivity by adapting wheat and maize varieties able to thrive despite the challenges of climate change, natural resource scarcity, diverse ecosystems, and increasing market demand. It will deliver elite wheat and maize germplasm that is high-yielding and robust—able to withstand drought, heat, diseases—and meets requirements for diversified cropping rotations and grain quality, and make it accessible to small seed companies so that they can offer quality, affordable seed to smallholder farmers. It will provide support in the use of modern biotechnology and bioinformatics tools and supply effective and profitable technologies and crop varieties for conservation and precision agriculture. BISA will have centers in three states, Punjab, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh, each of which contains varied agro-ecological zones allowing for testing of a variety of maize and wheat cultivars suited to the equally varied environments of South Asia.
Ayyappan opened the launch ceremony with a welcome address that was followed by speeches from Ramkrishna Kusmaria, Agriculture Minister of Madhya Pradesh, S. Sucha Singh Langah, Agriculture Minister of Punjab, and Sharad Pawar, the Union Minister for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries of India. Lumpkin delivered the closing remarks, saying “CIMMYT has been in India for 50 years. It’s time we laid down some roots.”
In addition to CIMMYT-India staff, the CIMMYT management committee, and its Board of Trustees, the ceremony was attended by representatives from CIMMYT’s sister institutions ILRI, IRRI, and Bioversity, as well as from the Allan Mustard Institute of the US Department of Agriculture and the private sector. The event was closed by a dinner and a speech by the Board of Trustees Chair, Sara Boettiger.
Photo credit: CIMMYT.
For more information about the launch, see CIMMYT's website at: www.cimmyt.org/en/front-page-tems/news2011/1166-new-borla....
For an overview of BISA, see: www.cimmyt.org/ru/about-us/partnerships/countries/doc_vie....