Ithaca, New York
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 University
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."
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Cornell graduate student Megan O'Rourke learned to
harvest rice by hand in a three-week course about rice
in developing countries. |
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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