IRRI Advancing the Goal of Cross-Border NARES Capacity Building & Knowledge Exchange

Hosted at IRRI South Asia Regional Centre, Varanasi, India; IRRI Rice Breeding Innovation and IRRI Education collaborated to organize an intensive one-week training cum capacity-building program for NARES scientists and officials from the neighboring country, Nepal.

The week-long program included several modules and sessions in hybrid mode. Including multiple classroom sessions, the training program encompasses delivery of courses/sessions around IRRI's One Rice Breeding Strategy, market segment-driven varietal development and positioning, the principles of product management, varietal positioning & seed scaling mechanism, on-farm trials, product profiling, digital innovations, better agronomic practices, and multiple technologies around resource efficiency and climate responsiveness.

The participants were taken on tours across the ISARC facility to get exposure and learn about multiple world-class laboratories, equipment, and processes. The participants received on-field training by visiting multiple on-station trials conducted around the evaluation of breeding lines, varieties, agronomy, and grain quality.

Without being confined to lectures from IRRI and external subject matter experts and exposure to ISARC facilities, the program included a detailed crop tour. NARES stakeholders from Nepal were taken to the on-site trials/demonstrations in the fields of Indian National partners for cross-learning, and knowledge exchange through interaction.

“As a major commitment to play a catalytic role to strengthen cross-border NARES capacity building, the program designed and delivered at ISARC for Nepal NARES is a step change”, said Dr. Swati Nayak, Scientist and South Asia Lead, Seed System and Product Management and the lead Technical Coordinator for the program.  Supported through IRRI One Rice Breeding, One CGIAR initiative SeedQual and IRRI Nepal Country Programme, this program has opened several windows of opportunities for future CGIAR IRRI-NARES collaboration and expansion of knowledge and skill attained, across a wider region.

The program was inaugurated with a welcome address and priority setting by Director ISARC, Dr. Sudhanshu Singh; Regional Breeding Lead, Dr. Vikas Kumar Singh; IRRI Nepal Country Representative, Dr. Krishna Dev Joshi; IRRI Education Lead, Mr. Gopesh Tiwari with detailed technical facilitation for the sessions by Dr. Kuntal Das, Senior Specialist, Seed Systems.