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Workshop on “Transforming Rice Breeding: Current Status and Way Forward”
International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) have organized a two-day workshop on “Transforming Rice Breeding: Current Status and Way Forward” in partnership with USAID and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) on 18-19 November 2018 held at ACI Limited head office ACI Centre, Tejgaon, Dhaka which will be followed by a field visit on 20 November 2018 at Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, Gazipur.
Honourable secretary of Ministry of Agriculture, People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Mr. Md. Nasiruzzaman, graced the opening of the workshop as Chief Guest. The special guest in the opening session was Mr. M. Anis Ud Dowla, Chairman, ACI Group. The guests of honor were Mr. Roy Fenn, USAID Bangladesh; and Dr. Gary Atlin, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The chair of the opening session was Dr. Humnath Bhandari, IRRI Representative for Bangladesh. Dr. F H Ansarey, Managing Director & CEO, ACI Agribusiness demonstrated ACI’s solutions for complete rice value chain which comprises of R&D, Seed, Fertilizer, Farm Machinery, Crop Protection, Rice Milling & Branding, Retailing & Communication.
The objective was to make awareness and disseminate the Transforming Rice Breeding (TRB) approaches and also the current status of the ongoing TRB program at IRRI, BRRI and ACI. Seven international rice scientists from IRRI and five national scientists from BRRI and ACI will talk before 80 participants in four concurrent sessions on 12 themes on Cutting Edge Approaches of Rice Breeding, known as Transforming Rice Breeding or TRB. The Transforming Rice Breeding or TRB enables rice breeder to develop a rice variety faster, within 3-4 years compared to the traditional system which takes around 7-8 years to develop a variety. The new approach of rice breeding is cost effective and based on market demand. The important aspect of the modern approach is the selection process, which is molecular based and unlike the visual selection system in the traditional approach. This molecular based selection ensure rice breeder to develop variety built in specific desired traits with high genetic gains mainly in terms of yield. It is strongly believed that the rice varieties once developed through the TRB approaches will be highly acceptable by the farmers not only for high yield but also for the desirable traits such as resistance to diseases and pests, salinity tolerant, and attractive grain quality, etc. It will overcome the constraints of varietal replacement, i.e., the farmers will not cultivate decades old varieties; instead they will cultivate the new ones. This would make tremendous boost of rice production in Bangladesh.
