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Sant Virmani IRRI hybrid rice breeder, 1979-2005 The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI; irri.org ), when it was founded had a different challenge at that time as Dr. [Robert] Chandler explains in his book, An Adventure in Applied Science. Now, as 3040 years have gone and we are coming to the 50th year, completing five decades, the national programs have become stronger. The challenges of rice cultivation, rice farmers, rice consumers, and the worldwide rice community have become vulnerable, complicated, and complex. So, under these circumstances, certainly, the challenge is that we should not be going deep in strategic research and ignoring the fact that we have solid practical problems. Whatever strategic and basic research is needed, according to the Institutes capability and resources, it should be done either here or in collaboration with advanced countries. But our focus should be to put IRRI in a situation that it can solve practical problems. Now, this requires a balance in which we empower ourselves in such a way that we can really perform the best. If we start working on the strategic or basic research side, do we have a comparative advantage to compete with the advanced countries, advanced labs, and the private sector in many of these technologies? We cant compete with them because we dont have the resources. So, I think our stance should be to put ourselves in a very strategic point in this whole continuum from basic research to applied and downstream <b>...</b> |
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