The Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) is developing modern crop varieties to promote agriculture in remote and underdeveloped areas of the country to alleviate poverty and end hunger and malnutrition. PARC will release four new long- and extra-long-grain rice varieties to increase the productivity and income of medium and small farmers. The new varieties will target pest-resistant, high-yielding and export markets. . FtF Bangladesh, IRRI, and partner seed companies discuss work plan to update private-sector breeding technologies Feed the Future (FtF) Bangladesh, IRRI, and partner seed companies discussed research activities for 2022 to strengthen private-sector breeding programs through modern technologies. The preliminary plan was formulated during the annual review and workshop of FtF Bangladesh-IRRI Rice Breeding Public-Private Partnership Platform held on 10-14 October 2021 in Dhaka. Led by Dr. Humnath Bhandari, IRRI country representative for Bangladesh, and Mohammad Rafiqul Islam, a plant breeder at IRRI, the workshop was attended by representatives from Supreme Seed Company Limited, Lal Teer Seed Limited, Ispahani Agro Limited, Aftab Bahumukhi Farms Limited, and Metal Agro Limited. Bangladesh Rural Development Academy and IRRI train women farmers to be seed entrepreneurs The Rural Development Academy (RDA)-Bogura in Bangladesh and IRRI organized a workshop that strengthens women farmers’ knowledge on proper seed certification guidelines and seed quality control issues. Thirty women-led farmers groups attended the seed quality control and marketing workshop in Narchi Village, Shahjahanpur sub-district on 08 November 2021. The workshop is an initiative under OneRice, a unified rice breeding strategy to develop and deliver better rice varieties faster to the farmers in Africa and Asia, jointly implemented by RDA and IRRI, in the Bogura, Joypurhat, and Sirajgonj Districts. BRRI-IRRI launch project to develop new rice varieties for wetland rice ecosystem For several years, rice cultivation in the wetlands of the northeastern part of Bangladesh, known as haor areas, have accounted for one-fifth of the total rice production in the country. However, haor areas have been bearing the brunt of climate change. To help them cope with the situation, rice growers in the haor regions need short-duration, cold-tolerant, and high-yielding varieties, according to Additional Agriculture Secretary Kamalaranjan Das during an online workshop organized by IRRI on 14 September 2020. To help tackle the problem, a new five-year research project with Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), Development of Short-duration Cold-tolerant Rice Varieties for Haor Areas of Bangladesh, funded by Krishi Gobeshona Foundation (KGF), was launched at the workshop. The aim of this project is to develop short-duration (120-140 days), cold-tolerant, and high-yielding varieties for the boro season. Read the full story |Source: Online/KSU
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