IRRI Pioneer Interviews--Challenges for IRRI: Sant Virmani

Sant Virmani IRRI hybrid rice breeder, 1979-2005 The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI; http://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 work so that we can perform and not lose sight of addressing farmers problems. Thats the biggest challenge I see and then performing the job with the financial constraints that we are facing. So, basically, the challenge is solving practical problems by using advanced science through strategic collaborations with both national programs and a strong private sector. We have to know how to work with the private sector. I still feel that CGIAR centers as a whole, including IRRI, are not yet very clear on how to work with the private sector—in a way that we also get something in return. Of course, in hybrid rice, we have been working in a way that, whatever is available, we are sharing with both the public and private sector. But thats just giving every time. We are not getting anything in return from it and the reason we cant get anything back is because we dont have a mechanism and thats another challenge that we have to face. [note: since this interview, an international Hybrid Rice Research and Development Consortium (HRDC; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnQMTQ... ) has been established.] Based on my experience in hybrid rice, if we can develop a model of collaboration with the private sector, I think it would also be useful for many other seed-based technologies that we have in the pipeline right now and where we can make an impact 5 to 10 years from now.