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6 april 2012 no 1513 the icrisat governing board with the management group at the 66th gb meeting in patancheru 66th governing board meeting science and institutional health strategic resource mobilization recognized icrisat is now moving full speed ahead in enhancing its science and institutional health and in mobilizing its financial human and technological resources this is in pursuit of the institute s overarching goal to make a difference in helping reduce poverty malnutrition and environmental degradation in the dryland tropics through its new strategy anchored on inclusive marker-oriented development crisat has redoubled its commitment and efforts in maintaining a good balance of science and institutional health financial strength and stability and staff morale and development as highlighted in the 66th icrisat governing board gb meeting held in patancheru on 1-4 april the board acknowledged the institute s vigorous ongoing efforts towards more strategic targeting of resource mobilization especially around larger projects accounting for at least 80 of new funding since the september 2011 board meeting an additional us$30.7 million has been raised from i mega-projects such as tl-ii ccafs and coeccrpp under its new fundraising plan icrisat is now actively pursuing bilateral programs and new partnerships emphasizing on how the institute can deliver together with its research-for-development r4d partners solutions for smallholder farmers in the dryland tropics of asia and sub-saharan africa the board also lauded the institute s sustained financial health through full-cost recovery and treasury investments taking all factors into account the budget for 2012 has been approved by the board to page 2 4

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66th governing board meeting from page 1 another highlight of the meeting was the gb s acknowledgment of icrisat s leadership in developing revising and getting the approval of crps 3.5 on grain legumes and 3.6 on dryland cereals by the cgiar fund council framework for revision of the two proposals is now in place focusing on bringing world-leading grain legume and dryland cereals programs and partners together for better impact on the ground and towards sharing expertise facilities and services that improve all partners capacities efficiency and effectiveness the board also expressed a better appreciation and understanding of the institute s performance and demonstrated accountability as reflected in the 2011 performance management indicators for research and for governance and management done to internally monitor the institutional management system the report shows an increasing number of bilateral projects and a better tracking of publications and number of scientists across programs ­ overall showing excellence in science all parameters in the areas of governance board membership financial health/stability and human resources senior management turnover/recruitment also indicate strong and healthy performance during the boards program committee pc meeting comprehensive presentations and fruitful deliberations on research programs on grain legumes and dryland cereals showcased the institute s impact-oriented science-based and farmer-centered research-for-development initiatives the research program overviews were complemented by presentations by young scientists the governing board meeting in session the board also bid farewell during the meeting to retiring member mr philip ikeazor who has served two terms as member and as chair of the audit committee since 2007 he will be handing over his position in the board by july 2012 to another nigerian oluwande muoyo a chartered accountant and professional banker the board likewise gave a warm welcome reception to new member mr pankaj dwivedi chief secretary of andhra pradesh india other decisions made by the board include emergency plan for west and central africa wca implementation strategy for gender and diversity policy and implementation of risk management policy g gb chair nigel poole hands over a memento to outgoing gb member philip ikeazor as drs dar and s ayyappan look on program committee meeting 2 icrisat happenings 6 april 2012/1513

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66th governing board meeting in pictures l to r gb member deborah delmer gb chair n poole dr v vadez and dr dar at the rainout shelter ps rao and bvs reddy giving an overview of sweet sorghum screening trial evaluation pm gaur center explains the advantages of a heattolerant chickpea line board members in the drought-tolerant high-oil groundnut experimental field g pardhasaradhi describing the analytical services provided by the cr analytical laboratory mcs bantilan explaining the vdsa data warehousing system board member ca madramootoo checking out sweet sorghum data in the groundnut field icrisat happenings 6 april 2012/1513 3

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banking on icrisat s research expertise and partnerships philip ikeazor calls for boosting nigeria s groundnut production to export levels i n july 2012 philip ikeazor will complete his second and final three-year term on the governing board of icrisat a professional banker and chartered accountant with over 25 years of experience in the financial sector ikeazor is currently executive director corporate investment banking and treasury at union bank of nigeria plc and a director of union bank uk plc union bank has remained nigeria s leading bank in supporting agriculture the last six years with icrisat has nurtured my belief that agriculture is one of the most potent ways to alleviate poverty and create significant income streams for the poor people of the semi-arid tropics said ikeazor i have witnessed the giant strides and impact made by icrisat s research work on smallholder farmers in india and east africa and some parts of west africa i would like such collaborations to be adopted in nigeria he added ikeazor is particularly keen on transferring the watershed irrigation technique piloted in india and the recent groundnut revolution in malawi which has seen a thriving fair trade export of improved groundnut to the uk nigeria was once the world s leading groundnut exporter in the 1960s with the crop accounting for about 70 of the country s total export earnings since then the success story of the groundnut pyramids of kano has sadly ended nigeria now produces barely enough groundnuts for local consumption and desperately needs to apply research that could eliminate aflatoxin from harvests and produce high yield export grade groundnuts to do this ikeazor is urging a collaboration between groundnut farmers and icrisat supported by nigeria s national agricultural research system nars and the ministry it is very timely that icrisat has recently reopened its research station in kano so nigeria needs to support icrisat beyond the existing bilateral agreement in order to reinstate the country s former groundnut glory by working with farmers to grow improved varieties of groundnuts which are more resistant to disease and meet export market demands as well as better aflatoxin management to prevent contamination we can significantly boost groundnut production and sales insists ikeazor this will create employment and yield significant income for smallholder farmers especially in the northern and the south western l to r board chair n poole associate professional officer for human nutrition mali vera lugutuah philip ikeazor regional scientist niamey falalou hamidou dr dar oluwande muoyo and p janila in the groundnut field part of the country he added ikeazor is positive that nigeria s groundnut industry can be revived he is inspired by the way farmers partnered with icrisat in malawi resulting in smallholder cooperatives replacing a declining tobacco crop market with the cultivation of the right variety of aflatoxin-free export grade groundnuts with the right support things can change in nigeria too ikeazor adds that the dynamic agriculture minister who is incidentally an alumnus of icrisat should include groundnuts among the first phase of major crops under the ministry s ongoing transformation program in addition the usual strong support of the central bank of nigeria and the ministry of finance in encouraging banks to support the agricultural sector will be needed ikeazor will be handing over his governing board position to another nigerian oluwande muoyo a chartered accountant and professional banker oluwande recently moved to the public sector having spent over 22 years of her 30-year postgraduation career at stanbic ibtc bank plc nigeria a subsidiary of the standard bank of south africa group she is currently the honourable commissioner for budget and planning in ogun state nigeria a state where agriculture has been identified as one of the main drivers of industrialization of its economy with her position as a non-executive board member of icrisat oluwande intends to align herself to the vision mission and strategic plans of icrisat and contribute her quota to the reduction of hunger and poverty in the lives of farmers in the tropical drylands g 4 icrisat happenings 6 april 2012/1513

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assam chief minister visits icrisat -patancheru assam chief minister tarun gogoi with dr dar the chief minister at the icrisat genebank c hief minister of assam mr tarun gogoi along with his family visited icrisat-patancheru on 5 april he was welcomed by director general william dar and senior staff members and was given an overview of the institute s ongoing research in his discussions with the chief minister dr dar highlighted the need for improved crop varieties to fight challenges like climate change and water scarcity the chief minister was briefed about icrisat s efforts to fight hunger and malnutrition in asia and sub-saharan africa during the tour of the institute s facilities he showed great interest in biotechnology research and expressed appreciation at the over 119,700 germplasm accessions assembled from over 144 countries housed in the genebank g i gxe visioning workshop held in bamako to increase income generation from rainfed farming and proposing avenues for better integration of crop improvement and systems research videolink presentations spanning 17 time zones from queensland to arizona were made inside a single day attendance included icrisat scientists from bamako kano nairobi niamey and patancheru alongside partners from ier-mali mcknight foundation usda/ars university of queensland csiro awhere inc wageningen university university of reading ccafs cra-italy and cirad the workshop was funded by the german ministry for economic cooperation and development bmz through the icrisat-codewa project g crisat in partnership with the mcknight foundation organized a visioning workshop on trans-disciplinarity in gxe interaction research to optimize functional agro-biodiversity and smallholder systems design for variable and changing environments on 18-20 march in bamako mali the workshop aimed to explore and visualize how enhanced disciplinary integration in genotype-byenvironment gxe interactions research can accelerate sustainable productivity increases in rapidly changing smallholder environments particular emphasis was laid on catalyzing synergies between in-situ and in-silico instruments e.g multi-environment trials and crop models for decision support six interlocking lecture tracks on environmental variability crop improvement crop modeling gxexm interactions systems design and genomic and geospatial tools provided a synthesis of the latest research and knowledge on west africa s environmental and breeding contexts and on state-of-the-art tools and concepts available to understand interactions between environments and genotypes participants were tasked with developing protocols for environmental proofing profiling in west africa a systems vision and entry points participants of the gxe visioning workshop in mali icrisat happenings 6 april 2012/1513 5

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training workshop on seed quality control and certification t he west africa seed alliance wasa seed project /icrisat in collaboration with niger s ministry of agriculture organized a regional training workshop on seed quality control and certification on 26-28 march at icrisat-niamey with usaid financial support attended by 19 seed quality control managers from burkina faso ghana niger nigeria and senegal including 5 trainers the main objective of the course was to ensure the availability of quality seed according to ecowas standards this they sought to do by sensitizing participants to ecowas technical regulations for seed quality and post-test control discussing techniques of field control and seed laboratory analysis identifying the strengths and weaknesses of national services in charge of seeds quality control including analysis and seed laboratory testing and taking home lessons on field analysis and seed laboratory testing for future participants check out seed quality standards actions particularly in human resources logistics and financial resources the workshop reviewed ecowas regulations and covered the theoretical and practical aspects of laboratory and field control participants discussed and shared their views on the processes in their countries g a vdsa data warehousing workshop held at patancheru data warehousing workshop of the village dynamics in south asia vdsa project supported by the bill melinda gates foundation bmgf and jointly implemented by icrisat irri and ncap in partnership with national institutes in bangladesh and india was held on 26 march ­ 6 april at icrisat-patancheru microsoft-sonata is providing the technical support for the vdsa data warehousing initiative initiative discussions also centered on meso-data related needs p parthasarathy rao and micro-data and harmonization of data across regions uttam deb vdsa project manager the workshop was attended by project team members from irri ncap icrisat and socioconsult bangladesh responsible for database management and included piedad f moya esther marciano and ma teresa ulat irri philippines alamgir chowdhury and mokhlesur rahman socioconsult taznoore samina khanam irribangladesh rajni jain umesh yadav and dushyant tyagi ncap and members of the vdsa database management team at icrisat to page 7 4 the objectives of this workshop were to reach a common understanding of the concepts of data warehousing agree and work towards integration of databases for three regions ­ sat india east india and bangladesh and articulate reporting and analytical needs from the data warehouse such as user interface canned reports ad-hoc reports confidentiality and security features research program director for markets institutions and policies mip and vdsa project leader dr cynthia bantilan highlighted the workshop s importance in achieving the goals of the data warehousing 6 icrisat happenings 6 april 2012/1513 paticipants of the vdsa workshop at patancheru.

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simlesa regional review and planning meet held in arusha participants of the simlesa review and planning meeting t he annual regional review and planning meeting of the australian centre for international agricultural research aciar funded sustainable intensification of maize-legume cropping systems for food security in eastern and southern africa australia murdoch university asareca arc­ south africa bmgf usaid-ftf cida ilri nares partners from ethiopia kenya malawi mozambique tanzania uganda botswana rwanda private seed industry and stakeholders of innovation platforms icrisat s said silim ganga rao emmanuel monyo and moses siambi participated in the meeting the icrisat team participated in regional review presentations on progress made during the last two years presented by the country coordinators and subsequent work plans dr said silim chaired the session on r&d describing the simlesa approach and highlights of the project including showcasing simlesa village success stories in the form of posters videos and seed samples of most promising varieties being used under the project ganga rao highlighted the progress made in implementing legume seed systems in each participating country ­ ethiopia beans and soybean kenya pigeonpea groundnut beans and soybean tanzania pigeonpea malawi pigeonpea groundnut and soybean and mozambique beans pigeonpea cowpea and soybean participants then visited mbulu district to see the on-farm maizepigeonpea intercrop trials under conservation agriculture and conventional tillage methods g a demonstration plot on conservation tillage with maize-pigeonpea intercropping simlesa project was held at arusha tanzania on 19-23 march to review the progress made during year 2 and devise work plans for year 3 by each participating nars during the deliberations the mid-term review team headed by greg edmeades was also present it was a big gathering with participation from icrisat cimmyt aciar commission qaafivdsa from page 6 dileepkumar guntuku trushar shah and pradyut modi of icrisat shared their technical expertise at the workshop which had ankur bhasin and manish kumar verma from microsoft-sonata s technical team working on the discovery phase of understanding the project s requirements and developing the software requirements specification srs document on 3 april the vdsa team briefed icrisat s governing board on the progress made during their visit to the vdsa data bank the board highly appreciated the initiative and roadmap towards establishing a vdsa data warehouse by the end of 2012 g icrisat happenings 6 april 2012/1513 7

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welcome illo amadou joined icrisat sadoré niger on 2 april as laboratory supervisor he holds a postgraduate degree in pharmaceutical sciences and has wide experience in quality management before joining icrisat he was head of research services/training assurance and quality at the niger national laboratory of public health laspex he has also been a consultant for installation and training in laboratories in various african countries mr amadou is a member of the west african committee on accreditation icrisat welcomes mr illo amadou g iacd summer camp the icrisat association for community development iacd will hold a summer camp for children of staff aged between 3 and 16 years from monday 30 april to friday 1 june their daily program will include swimming coaching 8:40-10:45 am tv watching 11:15 am to 12 noon lunch break 12:30 -1:30 pm at the 205 canteen and two learning sessions at iacd 1:45 -4:25 pm the camp will cost 3500 per child to be paid to iacd this covers only the food costs icrisat human resources has agreed to sponsor all other costs interested staff members may contact ms surekha of iacd ext 2152 or the iacd-mamta shop ext 2579 to enroll their children and remit the fee by friday 20 april g isrc news the volleyball tournaments that began on 21 march are heating up until now it has been a record of sorts with five teams clashing for the championship this year this year ms ramya gamely decided to join in with the boys the round robin matches have reached an interesting point where the top two teams are yet to be decided the finals will be played on 9 april meanwhile it s time to get ready for the football tournament beginning from 10 april interested players may assemble at the grounds near the swimming pool on 10 april at 5 pm g visitors log 02 april fifty five students of microbiology from aurora s degree college chikkadpally hyderabad 04 april twenty farmers and agriculture officers associated with accion fraterna from anantapur andhra pradesh under ifad 954-icrisat project thought for the week an investment in knowledge pays the best interest ­ benjamin franklin

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