1 April:1962,
IRRI's first plant physiologist, Akira Tanaka (photo,
far
left), arrives; 1982, M.S. Swaminathan
(photo right) arrives as IRRI’s fourth director general; 1999,
a new, overhauled IRRN debuts with an editorial board of scientists overseeing the content; 2002, first issue
of
Rice Today magazinedebuts; 2008,
Achim Dobermann assumes the position of deputy director general for
research (2nd photo left); the Steering Committee of the Consortium for Unfavorable Rice
Environments (CURE) has endorses Dr. David Johnson as the leader of
the CURE Coordinating Unit.
2 April: 2006,
as part of the Korean Seed Multiplication Project (KSMP), 25 tons of
high-quality rice seed multiplied under IRRI's controlled conditions are
airlifted to the National Institute of Crop Science in Korea (photo at
left). Korea’s achievement in rice self-sufficiency through the “Green
Revolution" of the 1970s was made possible through similar past arrangements. The first KSMP for
rapid dissemination of the popular Tongil variety was accomplished during the
1969-70 dry season; 2008, IRRI Director General
Robert Zeigler appears on BBC's Asia Business Report to say that
there is a need for another Green Revolution. He also discusses the rice
shortage in Asia and the tightening of supplies (see YouTube video of the
interview below.
3 April:1975, Maitim bridge
opened for access to new experimental farm land; 1995, George Rothschild
(photo) arrives as IRRI’s sixth director general; 1997,
IRRI launches www.riceworld.org
(currently under renonvation), which provides a virtual tour of the IRRI Riceworld Museum; 2002, the Collaborators' Center building is renamed Gurdev S. Khush Hall during the BOT
meeting; 2008, IRRI
convenes and hosts the inaugural meeting of the
Hybrid Rice Research and Development
Consortium (HRDC). See coverage on YouTube below.
4 April:2000, Philippine
President Joseph Estrada delivers keynote speech on "Rice research and
poverty alleviation" at Malacanang Palace on the occasion of IRRI's 40th
anniversary.
7
April:2005, Four members of the House of
Commons from the Netherlands and staff members from the Royal Netherlands
Embassy visit IRRI; 2006, 1) the auditorium in
Chandler Hall is officially dedicated as the Robert D. Havener Auditorium;
Florencia “Flor” Palis (photo below with BOT chair Kei Otsuka
and DG Robert Zeigler), postdoctoral fellow in the Entomology and Pathology
Division, and the IRRI Emergency Brigade were presented with, respectively,
the Director General’s 2005 Award for
Outstanding Scientific Achievement and the 2005 IRRI Award for Outstanding
Support of IRRI’s Mission. 2) IRRI and the International Potato Center (CIP) make CGIAR history by becoming the first two CG Centers to have a
video conference
using the Access Grid, which is a technology for enabling multiple locations,
even dozens, to participate simultaneously in a video conference.
8 April:1968, the first week-long International Rice
Research Conference (IRRC) begins at IRRI; 2008,
in the ongoing effort to acknowledge the contributions of outstanding
performers and role models among the national staff and to recognize those
who have shown extraordinary involvement in activities that contribute to
the overall improvement in effectiveness and
efficiency
of the Institute, the
2007 NRS awardees are announced:Alice Laborte, associate scientist in the Social
Sciences Division (IRRI
Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement, photo left), Norberto T. Quilloy, Research Technician III in plant
breeding (IRRI Award for Outstanding Research Support); and the Rice Today Production and Distribution Team IRRI
Award for Outstanding Administrative Support).
9
April:1970, UN Secretary General U Thant (center in
photo at right with IRRI breeder Hank Beachell at left and IRRI DG Robert
Chandler) visits IRRI; 1992, IRRI names new
biofertilizer laboratory for Prof. Kenzo Hemmi, an outstanding Japanese
agriculturist; 2002, due to impending budget
cuts the staff reduction program for nationally recruited staff begins.
10 April: 1974, U.S. Secretary of
Agriculture Earl Butz
visits IRRI; 1983, Premier Zhao Ziyang, People’s Republic of China, presents IRRI with the 1982 Third World Prize;
2008, IRRI DG Robert Zeigler is quoted in
Time magazine cover story on Asia's rice crisis: "Rice isn't just
another commodity. In Asia, rice has cultural, social, and, in many places,
even a religious role, so it carries much more psychological weight." On the
same day, Dr. Zeigler appears on the NPR'sMorning Edition to discuss the situation of rice-producing nations
cutting exports amid shortages. Click NPR logo to listen to the 5-minute
program.
11 April:2002, For developing improved rice varieties and for his contributions to increasing rice production in the Philippines, Gurdev Khush is awarded a Presidential Citation from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo;
2007, Central Luzon State University (CLSU)
awards a plaque of recognition to IRRI as one of its international
partners that contributed significantly to CLSU's growth and development;
2008,
following the BOT meeting, Director General
Robert Zeigler, BOT Chair Elizabeth Woods, Philippine Secretary of
Agriculture (and IRRI BOT member) Arthur Yap and BOT members Mutsuo Iwamoto
(Japan), Ruth Oniang'o (Kenya), Seong-Hee
Lee (Korea),
Achmad Suryana (Indonesia), and M. Syeduzzama (Bangladesh); and PhilRice
Executive Director Leo Sebastian hold a press conference on the rice price
and availability with the major Philippine media, which came down from
Manila for the specially arranged event. View the opening remarks on
YouTube below.
12 April:1975, Romanian
President and Mrs. Nicolae Ceausescu visit IRRI; 1981, 125 tons of Korean rice seeds grown in the Philippines are airlifted to Korea.
See 2 April.
13 April:1960, the IRRI Board of Trustees
gets together for the first time,
chaired by J. George Harrar (at left in photo) to kick off a 3-day meeting.
14 April:1960, IRRI is officially organized as the bylaws are adopted and approved in Manila; 1987, H.M. Beachell, former IRRI plant breeder, and G.S. Khush, head, IRRI’s Plant Breeding Department share the
Japan Prize in Tokyo; 2003, F.H. Abed
(photo, right), founder and chair of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) and member of the IRRI BOT, is awarded the
2003 Gleitsman Foundation International Activist Award for the Eradication of Poverty;2008,
the 5th International Crop
Science Congress (ICSC) starts at Jeju, Korea with the theme
of Recognizing Past Achievements, Meeting Future Needs!. A
24-member IRRI delegation is in attendance, headed by DG Robert Zeigler
(photo right), who gives a keynote presentation,
Rice Science: Key to Food Security and Environmental Health in a Changing
World. He prefaces his remarks with the developing crisis on
rising rice prices and shortages that are sparking concerns across Asia and
the world.
Click here to view Dr. Zeigler's PowerPoint;
2010,
two historical markers (one in English and one in Tagalog) are unveiled at
IRRI headquarters, which designate that IRRI is a national historical site in the
Philippines, as recognized by the
National Historical Institute (NHI)
(see YouTube video below, 1st row, left); also during its 50th anniversary
celebration, IRRI unveils two large plaques designating 332 pioneers
who worked at IRRI with its first director general Robert F. Chandler,
during the period from December 1959 to February 1962. Mr. Faustino Salacup,
guest of honor and former IRRI assistant treasurer; treasurer; executive
officer; controller; director, protocol and liaison (1961-89), responds on
behalf of all the pioneers listed (see YouTube video below, first row, center);
following a busy day of 50th anniversary activities, fireworks breaks out
over the IRRI rice plots (see YouTube video below, 1st row, right);
the
Philippine Postal Corporation (PPC) issues a set of four stamps (2nd
row below, center) celebrating the Institute's important work in rice
research for the world, much of it done in IRRI's host country. See YouTube
video shown during the stamp issuing ceremony (2nd row below left) and view
a video (2nd row below right) of Postmaster General Hector Villanueva's
comments and the signing of the first-day cover.
15 April: 1960, IRRI Program Committee meets for the first time; 2003, T.P. Tuong is named the head of the Crop, Soil, and Water Sciences (CSWS) Division.
16 April:1986, M.S. Swaminathan, IRRI director general, is given the Krishi Ratna Award by India’s President Giani Zail Singh; 1999, T.T. Chang, former head of International Rice Germplasm Center, accepts Tyler World Prize for Environmental Achievement in Los Angeles.
17 April: 2001,Shu-Huang Ou,
(photo) former head of the IRRI Department of Plant Pathology (1962-78) and
author of the classic book, Rice Diseases, passes away in California; 2006, starting today and throughout the rest of the
week of 17-21 April, almost 2,000 staff and dependents received the seasonal
flu vaccination to ward off the looming avian flu threat; 2007,
a workshop on"Clearing Old Hurdles with New Science: Improving Rice Grain Quality"
includes the first meeting of the International Network for Quality Rice (INQR);
the Philippine Society of Agricultural Engineers (PSAE) names Eugene Castro
as Most Outstanding Agricultural Engineer (Maramba Awardee) for 2007;2008, Prof. Elizabeth Woods,
IRRI BOT chair, is featured on ABC Radio Australia and discusses the causes
of the rapidly increasing price of grains and rice and related food security
and the issue of increasing hectares of land in Indonesia being used to grow
palm oil for fuel instead of food.
Click the logo to access the archived program on the Web site of ABC Radio
Australia; 2009, IRRI
recognizes nationally recruited staff: Anita "Annie" Boling and
Alvaro "Varoy" Pamplona for Outstanding Scientific Achievement in 2008,
Anicio Macahia for Outstanding Research Support, and the Program Planning
and Coordination Team for Outstanding Administrative Support.
18 April: 1968,
because he was so impressed with the performance of the rice variety that ushered in the Green Revolution, Indian farmer K.N. Ganesan (photo at left 15 years later) names his newborn son IR8; 1972, the Institute begins a week-long 10th anniversary
celebration attended by Ralph Cummings, Sr. (at right in photo
below with Robert Chandler, Jr.) who would on 1 June become IRRI's second director general
for a brief 4-month period before becoming thefirst director general of ICRISAT. The
year 1972 is the 10th anniversary of the start of IRRI's research program.
In subsequent celebrations of IRRI's founding, the date would be set from
1960, the year of the Institute's first Board Meeting; 1982, J. George Harrar,
Rockefeller Foundation official who conceived IRRI, passes away in Scarsdale,
New York;
2005, the IRRI
Environmental Council holds its inaugural meeting to begin implementing the
Institute's
Environmental Agenda. 2007, Ms.
Evangelina F. Salcedo-Ella (photo, right), Mr. Edgar Amoloza, the PBGB Rice
Genetics V Secretariat, and the IRRI-India Office staff are presented with,
respectively, the 2006
IRRI Awards for Outstanding Scientific Achievement, Outstanding
Research Support, and Outstanding Administrative Support; a
delegation
from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation led by Bill Gates (photo left), co-founder
of the Foundation and chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corp., and Dr. Raj Shah,
director of the Agricultural Development Program of the Foundation, visit the
Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS)-IRRI Joint Lab on Rice
Molecular Breeding and Genetics headed by IRRI molecular geneticist Zhi-Kang
Li.
19 April: 1979, IRRI's status,
prerogatives, and privileges as an international organization in the
Philippines is enacted as PD (presidential decree) 1620;
2001, David J. Mackill takes over as head of the
Plant Breeding, Genetics, and Biochemistry Division;
2008, In the 19-25 April issue of The
Economist, in which the feature is, The food
crisis and how to solve it, IRRI DG Robert Zeigler is quoted:
“Yields cannot be switched on and off like a tap. Spreading extra fertilizer
or buying new machinery helps. But higher yields also need better irrigation
and fancier seeds. The time lag between dreaming up a new seed and growing
it commercially in the field is ten to 15 years, Even if a farmer wanted to
plant something more productive this year, and could afford to, he could
not—unless research work had been going on for years. It has not.”
20 April: 1972,
during IRRI's 10th anniversary celebration, the Institute's so-called
"Magnificent Seven" of the time gathers in the rice plots, from left in
the photo: Sterling Wortman, A. Colin McLung, Hank Beachell, Jose Drilon,
Forest Hill, Ralph Cummings, and Robert Chandler; 2005, the Rural Development Administration (RDA) of Korea and IRRI continue collaboration in implementing the training workshop on Rice Technology Transfer Systems (RTTS)—the first of its kind in Asia. Training
Center Head Mark Bell is presented with a Gratitude Plate in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the successful implementation of the RTTS
and the further strengthening of the collaboration between Korea and IRRI.
Past IRRI winners of this award are Ben Vergara, Gurdev Khush, and Ronald
Cantrell.
21 April:1980,
as part of IRRI's 20th anniversary celebration, Harrar Hall (housing Food and Housing Services, cafeteria, and the mail and radio rooms) is dedicated
in honor of J. George Harrar
(at left in photo) of the Rockefeller Foundation who developed the concept
of an international center in Asia devoted to rice; 2009,
the permanent exhibit, The Grain That Sustains a Nation: Rice in China,
opens at the IRRI Riceworld Museum.
23 April:1969, Robert Chandler attends the
Bellagio I Meeting as part of a delegation of 15 national and international donor organizations. This 3-day meeting started a series of conferences that resulted in the formation of the
CGIAR; 2007,
twenty high school students from Thailand and
the Philippines (photo) attend IRRI’s
Rice Camp 2007--the 2nd one-week
training course that exposes the participants to the basics of agriculture as
well as the new frontiers that await young rice scientists in the future.
24 April:2006,
19 students from Thailand and the Philippines (photo) begin the first-ever,
week-long rice camp hosted by IRRI, in conjunction with the Thai Rice
Foundation and
the Philippine Rice Institute. The students work in the rice fields, listen to
various lectures, and participate in fun-filled learning activities. Click here for a 2:00 video and see
an additional one on YouTube below.
25 April: 1960, a copy of the
land title, in the name of the Universityy of the Philippines (purchased a
Ford Foundation grant), for 37.63 hectares of experimental land is delivered
to IRRI management; Certificate of Registration #265, certifying that IRRI
is registered as a "trust for charitable uses," is issued by the Philippine
Office of the Insurance Commissioner; 1989, Gurdev S. Khush is elected Foreign Associate, US National Academy of Science; 2002, IRRI plant breeder Darshan Brar is named an Honorary Fellow of the Crop Science Society of the Philippines (CSSP); 2005, CIMMYT research committee members arrive at IRRI headquarters to, in part, meet with their counterparts for moving forward with the four Alliance Programs proposed by the two centers’ boards.
26
April: 2007, Mahabub Hossain, economist and
head, Social Sciences Division, gives a
farewell summary of social science research at IRRI since 1992.
Wrapping up his 15 years with a dual role as a researcher and administrative
head in SSD, he presents a synthesis of socioeconomic studies on rice supply
and demand trends in Asia and discusses constraints to increasing rice
productivity, understanding rural livelihood systems, and the impact of
improved rice technologies on poverty reduction. Dr. Hossain is retiring from
IRRI to become the executive officer of the
Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC).
28 April:2004, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo honors
Dr. S.K. De Datta
(photo), former IRRI agronomist and principal scientist (1964-91), with a Presidential Citation Award.
In 1981, Dr. De Datta published Principles and Practices of Rice Production
with John Wiley and Sons, which is recognized as a major contribution to the
rice science literature.
29 April:2009, the Executive
Board of the Global Crop Diversity Trust meets at
IRRI to discuss strategic issues relating to genetic resources.
30 April: 1960, University of the Philippines President Sinco signs a lease for all the University-owned land made available to IRRI for both buildings and experimental fields;
1999, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (1970) Norman
Borlaug visits IRRI; 2002, Lao PDR Prime Minister Boun-nhang Vorachith
visits IRRI; 2008, in the 2008 Critique & Awards
Program of the Association for
Communication Excellence (ACE), Rice Today staff members in
CPS won
three Gold Awards and one Silver Award for material in the four
issues of the magazine published in 2007. Accumulating 98 out of a possible
100 points in the overall Magazines and Periodicals Category, the judges
commented that the Rice Today team took often difficult and sometimes
technical subjects and made them interesting to the reader. The outstanding
photography highlighted a good balance between text and graphics. The
Rice Today team includes CPS staff members Adam Barclay (managing
editor), George Reyes, Ariel Javellana, Gene Hettel, Meg Mondoñedo, Juan
Lazaro IV, Bill Hardy, Jose Raymond Panaligan, Emmanuel Panisales, and Chris
Quintana.
1 April: 
(photo,
far
left), arrives; 
3 April: 
competition sponsored by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)
for countries in its East Asia Division; 
gh; 
28 April: 
