 |
Significant Dates in IRRI History
June
 1 June: 1961, Sterling Wortman initiates the world rice germplasm collection at IRRI; 1972, Ralph
W. Cummings, Sr. (photo), arrives as IRRI’s second director general, but
departs in September
to become the first
director general of ICRISAT; 2001, Muhammad Yunus, founder and managing director of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, winner of the
1994 World Food Prize,
future winner of the
2006 Nobel Peace Prize, and former member of the IRRI Board of Trustees (1988-94), visits the Institute and gives a seminar on
The role of technology in poverty alleviation; 2006,
the Crop, Soils, and Water Sciences (CSWS) Division and the entomology part of
the former Entomology and Plant Pathology Division (EPPD)
 officially integrate
to become the Crop and Environmental Sciences (CES) Division; 2009,
IRRI and the CGIAR are featured in the
June issue of National Geographic Magazine in its feature,
The global food crisis: The end of plenty.
 2 June: 1995, Rudy Aquino, IRRI senior assistant scientist, is named one of
“20 great Asians” by
Asiaweek Magazine; 2006,
IRRI, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development
(MARD) of Vietnam and the World Bank, formally launches the Environmental
Radio Soap Opera for Rural Vietnam and announces
an environmental
initiative in conjunction with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN).
5 June: 1967, IRRI kicks off its first 6-month international rice production training course with 35 participants from 6 countries;
1996, IRRI presents the International Rice Award in the form of a Gold Medal to His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej in Bangkok; 2001, more than 100 participants from PhilRice, IIRR, AD B, PCARRD, the IRRI Collaborators' Center, and the Los Baños Science Community attend an Inter-institutional
Communication Workshop at IRRI; 2008, China
gives one of its most prestigious scientific awards, the
International
Science and Technology Award of the People’s Republic of China, to
IRRI for making an “important contribution to improve grain output,
agricultural efficiency, and the income of farmers.” China State Councilor
Liu Yandong presents the award to IRRI Director General Robert S. Zeigler at
a special award ceremony in Beijing
6 June: 2006, His Excellency W.M.
Senevirathna, Ambassador of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka to
the Philippines, visits IRRI.
 7 June: 1988, Robert F. Chandler, Jr.
(photo), IRRI’s first director general, r eceives the
1988 World Food Prize.
View below a 8:07 Google video on the occasion of Dr. Chandler receiving this
award; 2004, Dr. Mutsuo Iwamoto, president of the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences
(JIRCAS),
visits IRRI; 2007, Ren Wang, deputy
director general for research, gives his
farewell seminar. He departs IRRI to become
CGIAR director
on 23 July 2007. He gives an overview of the major developments and
achievements in IRRI’s research and product portfolio that he has witnessed in
the past 7-1/2 years.
13 June: 1986, A.U. Khan, IRRI agricultural engineer, receives the International Inventor’s Award for Industry from King Carl Gustaf of Sweden at ceremonies held in Stockholm; 2001, in Beijing, the China State Council presents Gurdev
Khush, IRRI principal plant breeder, with
 the
International Scientific and Technical Cooperation Award of the People's
Republic of China; 2007, the project,
Implementation plans to disseminate submergence-tolerance rice varieties and
associated new production practices to Southeast Asia, is launched
during a planning workshop at IRRI; 2008,
IRRI and the Institute for Investigation of Agriculture Mozambique (IIAM)
conduct the first-ever
Farm
Mechanization Field Day in southern Mozambique.
15 June: 1999, IRRI receives three
Gold Awards
and Bronze Award for its work on the
1997-98 Corporate
Report on Biodiversity, 1999-2000 Publications Catalog, the Riceworld
Web site, and
photography depicting germplasm conservation in Bhutan. The Publications Catalog also receives an
 Outstanding Professional Skill Award; 2000,
a major 3-day
scientific gathering honoring the memory of Dr. Robert F. Chandler, Jr. kicked
off at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York
(proceedings at left); 2006,
Dr. A. Colin McClung, former IRRI assistant director (1964-1966; photo at
right)) and associate
director (1967-1971) shares the
2006
World Food Prize; 2009,
the keys to the new office of the
IRRI Fund Singapore (IFS) are formally handed over by a
representative of Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
 17
June: 2000, more than 150 scientists,
scholars, and dependents attend the IRRI alumni reunion held at Cornell
Univer-sity, Ithaca, New York. The reunion followed the international
symposium on "Rice Research and Production in the 21st Century" honoring the
late Dr. Robert F. Chandler, Jr. held 15-17 June at Cornell (see above);
click photo above left to see larger: (from left) Loyd Johnson
(Engineering); Randy Barker (Economics); Ben Vergara (Plant Physiology);
Akira Tanaka (Plant Physiology); Lina Vergara (Library); Kwanchai Gomez
(Statistics); Colin McClung (Deputy Director); S.K. De Datta (Agronomy);
Ronnie Coffman (Plant Breeding); Haro ld
Kauffman (Plant Pathology); Hank Beachell (Plant Breeding); and Amir Khan
(Engineering);
2002, new IRRI intranet portal officially debuts; 2007,
Gene Hettel, head of Communication and Publications Services (photo, right), wins the
2007
International
 Award
of Excellence from the Association for
Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human
Sciences in the United States.
19 June: 2000, Genoveva Loresto
(at left in photo) retires after 37 years of outstanding and valuable service to IRRI in many capacities including
training and from senior associate scientist to project scientist in the
Genetic Resources Center.
21 June: 2002, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research hosts the first Steering Committee Meeting of the
Consortium for Unfavorable Rice Environments
(CURE) in New Delhi, India.
22 June: 2005, IRRI introduces is Rice News Worldwide
facility; 2007, IRRI is awarded a
certificate for ISO 14001, which is an internationally reco gnized standard for
environmentally sustainable systems, and as such demonstrates IRRI’s commitment to environmental sustainability; 2009,
Gurdev Khush, former principal plant breeder at
IRRI, begins a 5-year stint as eminent professor at the Graduate School of
Biotechnology of Kyung-Hee University in Suwon, South Korea.
23 June: 2008, IRRI
hosts a 3-day
International Conference on Rice Plant-hoppers, which have
devastated millions of acres in southern China and Vietnam in recent years
where increasing insecticide resistance has become a concern.
24 June: 2002, IRRI cross number
IR80000
(photo, left) is seeded.
25 June: 2001, IRRI's second
director
general, Ralph W. Cummings, Sr. (photo right), passes away at the age of 90.
He was director general only briefly in 1972 before
becoming the first
director general of ICRISAT.
26 June: 1996, IRRI Web site
is launched at www.irri.org.
Revamping of the site has continued t hroughout the years.
27 June: 1997,
250 former IRRI scientists, scholars, and dependents kick-off the 3-day
3rd IRRI Alumni Reunion
in Gainesville, Florida; 2007,
Thailand's Ministry of Agricultural and Cooperatives and IRRI
sign an agreement to
expand
their existing bilateral cooperation in the field of rice variety development
to add increased value to Thailand's important staple. The agreement was
signed by Minister Thira Sutabutr (right) and IRRI DG Robert S. Zeigler
(photo).
IRRI Home |
Back to News
|
|
|
|
