During the Safety Awareness Summit at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the importance of an overall culture of safety was highlighted by IRRI Director General Bob Zeigler, who is also chief of the Risk Management and Quality Assurance (RMQA) team of the institute.In his welcome address, Zeigler emphasized that safety is central to the entire mission of...
Author Archives: Alaric Santiaguel
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and Agricultural Learning and Impacts Network (ALINe) jointly organized the Green Super Rice (GSR) project monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) workshop on 8-10 September 2015 at BRAC Centre, Dhaka, Bangladesh. This workshop aimed to create a common understanding of GSR in Bangladesh, to look at how the goals of GSR...
Since it started in 2014, more than 40 extension agents have participated in the season-long training on dry seeded rice (DSR) technology and have consequently reached almost two thousand farmers. The program is based on a format developed at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) where participants receive hands-on training on all aspects of crop production...
Dry direct seeding of rice requires less labor, saves water, and the crop tends to mature faster than transplanted crops. The technology has helped transform 250 hectares of uncultivable land in the Sivagangai district of Tamil Nadu into productive rice areas. The Rural Transformation Program of the Reliance Foundation and the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA)...
A press conference was organized to raise awareness of the rice production constraints in Tamil Nadu such as water and labor shortage and some possible mitigation strategies such as use of water- and labor-saving technologies. The panel discussants were V. Ravi, director of Tamil Nadu Rice Research Institute; R. Rajendran, head of Coconut Research Station in Vepankulam;...
In the last 5 years, the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project has scaled out water- and labor-saving technologies. These technologies have reached over 25,000 farmers and have covered more than 70,000 acres in Thanjavur, Thiruvarur, and Nagapattinam districts of the Cauvery Delta and the neighboring districts of Ramanathapuram and Sivagangai. This...
An Information and Communications Technology (ICT) laboratory for disseminating new rice production technologies was officially opened at the Soil and Water Management Research Institute (SWMRI) in Kattuthottam, Thanjavur District in Tamil Nadu on 15 September.“The lab will hopefully be of good use to students and farmers,” said Dr. Noel Magor, head of the Impact Acceleration...
Partner organizations of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) agreed to extend the research and development initiatives under the Cereal Systems Initiatives for South Asia (CSISA). “The Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) will take up the outscaling of key technologies under CSISA although the project has already ended,” said R. Rajendran, TNAU...
Farmers in Tamil Nadu can increase their profits by USD67 per hectare while using lesser fertilizer through the Nutrient Manager for Rice (NMR) technology. NMR is a decision tool for nutrient management guidelines for rice developed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and is based on the principles of site-specific nutrient management (SSNM)...
The Grain Quality and Nutrition Services Laboratory (GQNSL) was awarded on 18 September 2015 with a PNS ISO/IEC 17025 reaccreditation, said to be effective from 2015 to 2020 and subject to ongoing compliance with laboratory testing standards by the Philippine Accreditation Bureau (PAB). PAB director Ernani Dionisio handed the certificate of reaccreditation to GQNC head...
